This post is mainly to detail what we have been up to for the last week. The thing that has occupied most of my thoughts for almost 2 weeks now. I'm hoping one day I look back and laugh at how crazy I was about it. Right now though... I'm worrying about getting everything fixed and hurting because of the stye in my eye that shows up any time I get crazy stressed out. Anyway... I give you (if you are even interested)... The Lightning Saga of 2017:
First up... It's Raining, It's Pouring is one of Will's favorite songs right now for some reason but I have questions... How did the old man go to bed and THEN bump his head? In his sleep? Weird. Secondly, why did he not get out of bed in the morning? Did he bump his head so badly that he died? I have many questions.
Second... you know the saying, when it rains, it pours? Well, we learned that sometimes is the case. I have heard before that Central Florida is often considered the "Lightning Capital" of the United States. I googled it and for a long time this was true but apparently NASA used some sattelites and found out that there are other places that are serious hotspots; however, as a whole... Central Florida is on up there. About a week and a half ago we had quite the rainstorm. Rainstorms are nothing new to this area. We see them all the time and they usually don't last long so this one wasn't anything too crazy, I thought but the lightning was pretty severe. It started as a massive amount of lightning and thunder and then turned into that combined with a deluge. Our backyard flooded. Our front yard likely did too but I didn't go outside to look during the storm and Will was napping so I had no windows to the outside world on that side of the house. Then, about 45 minutes into the storm, it got crazy. There was a loud bang of lightning, the house shook, the lights went out (though it was only part of them I think now), a major clicking noise happened, a huge pop was audible, the smoke detectors all chirped, and then... silence. It's weird how quiet a house is when you lose power. Weirdly enough though, we didn't lose all of our power. Kenzie was in her room, until she came running out because it was so loud, and her room never lost power (or so she says). After some investigation, I determined that only half the house lost power so I went outside to check the breakers. A few were tripped so I reset them. Well, I reset all but one. One just wouldn't reset. It had blown. This particular breaker powered our living room, nook, and back patio. Not cool.
The plus was that everything else came back on. The AC was fine. The fridge was fine. All of our appliances in the kitchen... fine. Fish tank? Fine. Just that one breaker... or so we thought. I called Steven to see what he thought and initially we thought we would wait for him to get home so we could get a better look at it.
Then, I went into our bedroom (where there was power) to turn the TV on for Kenzie so I could deal with the power issue and realized that the cable adapter box was off and the TV was glowing red as if it was on. But it wouldn't actually turn on... or off as the light wouldn't go off. Then Steven's alarm clock randomly turned off despite the remainder of the bedroom having power.
Then came the fun part. I glanced outside and realized that our sprinklers were running. All 6 or 7 zones. At once. The pressure stunk, but they were definitely all on. So we looked like the crazy people that were running sprinklers in the midst of a rainstorm. Cute. I called Steven again and he walked me through going outside (the rain was calm at this point) to check the sprinkler box and try to turn them off manually. When I got out there, the box was blank like it had no power. I turned the dial to "off" and nothing happened. They continued to run. At this point, much to his chagrin because he was prepping for a meeting in two days, Steven left work and came home to assess the damage.
In the interim of waiting for Steven I realized that the modem was off as well so our internet and cable both seemed to have issues which made sense but was frustrating. I couldn't check the other cable box because it was in the living room that had no power. It definitely looked like there were issues with the cable lines or something.
Finally (though it was only about 45 minutes later), Steven got home and we started assessing the damage together. He was able to turn the sprinklers off by cutting the power to the entire system. It looked as if maybe the box had blown after the lightning strike. It was becoming more and more apparent that our house had likely been hit by lightning. After we looked around more we determined that it was time to call it into insurance and make a claim. It was looking like this wasn't going to be an easy fix.
That night we plugged in our 73" tv to an outlet that we knew worked and then watched in silence as it sat on a blue start up like screen for... well, forever. It just sat there. Wouldn't start up and wouldn't turn off without being unplugged. Add that to the list. The next morning we noticed that Steven's alarm clock didn't go off. After messing with it some, we realized that it too, had taken a hit and some functionality had been lost.
I'm going to spare everyone the monotonous details of the insurance process. Long story short, we had to contact our own repair company choices, obtain estimates, submit and wait for approval so things could be fixed There was more nuance to it than that, but that is the cliff notes version. We had to have specific wording on estimates, we had to do it for any contents lost over $300, yada yada yada. The phone calls ended up being my least favorite part of all of this. Steven has been really busy at work so it was easier for me to handle the ins and out of this. Plus, our insurance agents (not our company) are actually my parents so calling them 4,000 times a day should probably be my job anyway. We ended up with a nice adjuster which was helpful and having people on the inside (my parents) was super helpful. If I had a more than likely dumb question, I ran it by them first to see if I should ask the adjuster or anything. I'm sure they are quite tired of hearing my voice or seeing my number pop up on their caller ID during business hours at this point.
We started by having an electrician come out as that was the basis of our issues. We couldn't determine what electronics were likely blown or anything else without having power in the house and we were currently still missing power in the living room, nook, and on our patio. When he came out, he immediately knew it was a lightning strike and said that based on our damage, it likely came in on a low voltage wire in the ground meaning that the lightning basically struck somewhere in or near our yard. Though we never saw any burned evidence of it. It could have been slightly farther away and we just were the unlucky ones that caught the brunt of it. As it turned out, the damage to our panel wasn't terrible but some breakers needed replacing. We only did the necessary one to restore power to the whole house immediately and got an estimate for the remainder. We also ended up blowing out two different GFI outlets, a motion sensor light in our laundry room, and the timer on our carriage lights. Oh, and because of the way it traveled through the house, we ended up needing all of our smoke detectors replaced. Once he finished making sure of what had power and what didn't, other things were becoming apparent that would need fixing. Namely, the sprinkler box and garage door motor. So fun.
The next step was having the cable/internet provider come out to check out those blown boxes and modem. The electrician told us previously to not be surprised if the line into the house for the cable was compromised because that could be how it came in but we learned that it wasn't. Thankfully. That meant no one had to dig up our yard. As it turned out though, the current had blown all of the devices in the house so they needed to be replaced. Thankfully that is an easy fix and it was done pretty quickly.
Next up was the garage door. About 6 months ago we actually had our entire coil and spring thing (I'm sure there is a more technical term for that) rebuilt by a specific company so I called them out again. One look at it and the tech knew that it was lightning damage. I had informed him before he started but he said it was apparent and we were actually pretty lucky that we never had a fire. There was visible burn marks on the circuit board and some other areas of the motor's box. We ended up needing an entire new motor. The plus is that there motors come with some added bonuses like an outside keypad which is a great addition for us since we like to go on walks or over to visit the neighbors and things like that and we often leave from the garage. Now we will be able to close it from the outside without a clicker being removed from a car.
The sprinklers were finally checked out a week after the lightning hit. It was a long week. In Florida, when it isn't raining... you can't just ignore your grass and not run sprinklers. Finally, the night before the sprinkler people were set to come out, Steven decided to manually open the valves and water some of the grass because it was looking a bit iffy. We can't afford to re-sod and the HOA wasn't going to accept crispy grass. They are a bit obnoxious. After a lot of trial and error, Steven found a valve hidden under some overgrown grass that turned on the front yard sprinklers. This is the one he mainly wanted to find and we thought we were going crazy when he tried every other one without any luck in turning on the front yard until he realized one was hidden. The sprinkler people we called were actually the same ones we used when we had a leaking valve that needed to be replaced. They also came highly recommended on a FB post I wrote on our Apopka page so I gave them a call. It only took a few minutes for them to diagnose our issue. Apparently the lightning came in through a solenoid. I have no idea what that is, but the lightning hit there and burned up 2 of the ones we have. Steven knew what it was and made sure to correct me when I totally spelled it wrong in a text I sent to him. Anyway, both of those needed to be replaced. After that, it traveled around the house causing all the other issues. It also blew the sprinkler clock/controller. We knew that was blown but he verified it and after his visit, we knew where the lightning came from. It also helped to explain why every house around us also had sprinkler issues following the strike. Most of them were able to just reset their breakers and call it a day but we think our one neighbor's might have blown as well. He (luckily) didn't have any other damage though. Just the sprinklers. We apparently took the direct hit. So... you're welcome to all our neighbors that didn't get hit as hard since we seemed to have taken the brunt of it. ;) This let me check off another estimate on our growing list of quotes needed to satisfy the insurance company. It also made me fully aware of how serious lightning can be. A split second of electricity that ran through our house in less time that that caused as much damage as it did... and we were lucky there was no fire. I am very grateful that an annoying insurance claim is all we have to deal with after this incident.
Finding someone to assess the TV was harder than any of the others. Most companies I called wanted me to bring the TV to them but carting around a 73" TV that is bolted to a special stand is definitely not what I wanted to do. Or anything I could do. Finally, we settled on the Geek Squad. Mainly because they would come to us. The downfall was that we had to wait over a week after the lightning to have someone come out to look at it. The Geek Squad showed up right on time and it only took the two "Agents" (I was trying not to crack up that he has to refer to himself as that even when calling into their parts department) about 5 minutes to diagnose the issue and figure out the next step. It was easy enough... TV wouldn't turn on... parts are NLA (No Longer Available) so... total loss on the TV. Oh well. We tried.
At this point it was almost time to give a sigh of relief. All the estimates were done. The next step was to get all the paperwork together and get it over to our adjuster. We have done that now and we are currently in a waiting game. We can't make any more repairs until we have the adjuster approve them and some money in hand so we wait... I hope we get this taken care of shortly. I'm definitely ready to get back to my regular life. I'm looking forward to not rearranging schedules to make sure I'm here for people to come and worrying constantly about what may or may not be approved by the insurance. Hopefully the rest of the process will be fairly painless.
First up... It's Raining, It's Pouring is one of Will's favorite songs right now for some reason but I have questions... How did the old man go to bed and THEN bump his head? In his sleep? Weird. Secondly, why did he not get out of bed in the morning? Did he bump his head so badly that he died? I have many questions.
Second... you know the saying, when it rains, it pours? Well, we learned that sometimes is the case. I have heard before that Central Florida is often considered the "Lightning Capital" of the United States. I googled it and for a long time this was true but apparently NASA used some sattelites and found out that there are other places that are serious hotspots; however, as a whole... Central Florida is on up there. About a week and a half ago we had quite the rainstorm. Rainstorms are nothing new to this area. We see them all the time and they usually don't last long so this one wasn't anything too crazy, I thought but the lightning was pretty severe. It started as a massive amount of lightning and thunder and then turned into that combined with a deluge. Our backyard flooded. Our front yard likely did too but I didn't go outside to look during the storm and Will was napping so I had no windows to the outside world on that side of the house. Then, about 45 minutes into the storm, it got crazy. There was a loud bang of lightning, the house shook, the lights went out (though it was only part of them I think now), a major clicking noise happened, a huge pop was audible, the smoke detectors all chirped, and then... silence. It's weird how quiet a house is when you lose power. Weirdly enough though, we didn't lose all of our power. Kenzie was in her room, until she came running out because it was so loud, and her room never lost power (or so she says). After some investigation, I determined that only half the house lost power so I went outside to check the breakers. A few were tripped so I reset them. Well, I reset all but one. One just wouldn't reset. It had blown. This particular breaker powered our living room, nook, and back patio. Not cool.
The plus was that everything else came back on. The AC was fine. The fridge was fine. All of our appliances in the kitchen... fine. Fish tank? Fine. Just that one breaker... or so we thought. I called Steven to see what he thought and initially we thought we would wait for him to get home so we could get a better look at it.
Then, I went into our bedroom (where there was power) to turn the TV on for Kenzie so I could deal with the power issue and realized that the cable adapter box was off and the TV was glowing red as if it was on. But it wouldn't actually turn on... or off as the light wouldn't go off. Then Steven's alarm clock randomly turned off despite the remainder of the bedroom having power.
Then came the fun part. I glanced outside and realized that our sprinklers were running. All 6 or 7 zones. At once. The pressure stunk, but they were definitely all on. So we looked like the crazy people that were running sprinklers in the midst of a rainstorm. Cute. I called Steven again and he walked me through going outside (the rain was calm at this point) to check the sprinkler box and try to turn them off manually. When I got out there, the box was blank like it had no power. I turned the dial to "off" and nothing happened. They continued to run. At this point, much to his chagrin because he was prepping for a meeting in two days, Steven left work and came home to assess the damage.
In the interim of waiting for Steven I realized that the modem was off as well so our internet and cable both seemed to have issues which made sense but was frustrating. I couldn't check the other cable box because it was in the living room that had no power. It definitely looked like there were issues with the cable lines or something.
Finally (though it was only about 45 minutes later), Steven got home and we started assessing the damage together. He was able to turn the sprinklers off by cutting the power to the entire system. It looked as if maybe the box had blown after the lightning strike. It was becoming more and more apparent that our house had likely been hit by lightning. After we looked around more we determined that it was time to call it into insurance and make a claim. It was looking like this wasn't going to be an easy fix.
That night we plugged in our 73" tv to an outlet that we knew worked and then watched in silence as it sat on a blue start up like screen for... well, forever. It just sat there. Wouldn't start up and wouldn't turn off without being unplugged. Add that to the list. The next morning we noticed that Steven's alarm clock didn't go off. After messing with it some, we realized that it too, had taken a hit and some functionality had been lost.
I'm going to spare everyone the monotonous details of the insurance process. Long story short, we had to contact our own repair company choices, obtain estimates, submit and wait for approval so things could be fixed There was more nuance to it than that, but that is the cliff notes version. We had to have specific wording on estimates, we had to do it for any contents lost over $300, yada yada yada. The phone calls ended up being my least favorite part of all of this. Steven has been really busy at work so it was easier for me to handle the ins and out of this. Plus, our insurance agents (not our company) are actually my parents so calling them 4,000 times a day should probably be my job anyway. We ended up with a nice adjuster which was helpful and having people on the inside (my parents) was super helpful. If I had a more than likely dumb question, I ran it by them first to see if I should ask the adjuster or anything. I'm sure they are quite tired of hearing my voice or seeing my number pop up on their caller ID during business hours at this point.
We started by having an electrician come out as that was the basis of our issues. We couldn't determine what electronics were likely blown or anything else without having power in the house and we were currently still missing power in the living room, nook, and on our patio. When he came out, he immediately knew it was a lightning strike and said that based on our damage, it likely came in on a low voltage wire in the ground meaning that the lightning basically struck somewhere in or near our yard. Though we never saw any burned evidence of it. It could have been slightly farther away and we just were the unlucky ones that caught the brunt of it. As it turned out, the damage to our panel wasn't terrible but some breakers needed replacing. We only did the necessary one to restore power to the whole house immediately and got an estimate for the remainder. We also ended up blowing out two different GFI outlets, a motion sensor light in our laundry room, and the timer on our carriage lights. Oh, and because of the way it traveled through the house, we ended up needing all of our smoke detectors replaced. Once he finished making sure of what had power and what didn't, other things were becoming apparent that would need fixing. Namely, the sprinkler box and garage door motor. So fun.
The next step was having the cable/internet provider come out to check out those blown boxes and modem. The electrician told us previously to not be surprised if the line into the house for the cable was compromised because that could be how it came in but we learned that it wasn't. Thankfully. That meant no one had to dig up our yard. As it turned out though, the current had blown all of the devices in the house so they needed to be replaced. Thankfully that is an easy fix and it was done pretty quickly.
Next up was the garage door. About 6 months ago we actually had our entire coil and spring thing (I'm sure there is a more technical term for that) rebuilt by a specific company so I called them out again. One look at it and the tech knew that it was lightning damage. I had informed him before he started but he said it was apparent and we were actually pretty lucky that we never had a fire. There was visible burn marks on the circuit board and some other areas of the motor's box. We ended up needing an entire new motor. The plus is that there motors come with some added bonuses like an outside keypad which is a great addition for us since we like to go on walks or over to visit the neighbors and things like that and we often leave from the garage. Now we will be able to close it from the outside without a clicker being removed from a car.
The sprinklers were finally checked out a week after the lightning hit. It was a long week. In Florida, when it isn't raining... you can't just ignore your grass and not run sprinklers. Finally, the night before the sprinkler people were set to come out, Steven decided to manually open the valves and water some of the grass because it was looking a bit iffy. We can't afford to re-sod and the HOA wasn't going to accept crispy grass. They are a bit obnoxious. After a lot of trial and error, Steven found a valve hidden under some overgrown grass that turned on the front yard sprinklers. This is the one he mainly wanted to find and we thought we were going crazy when he tried every other one without any luck in turning on the front yard until he realized one was hidden. The sprinkler people we called were actually the same ones we used when we had a leaking valve that needed to be replaced. They also came highly recommended on a FB post I wrote on our Apopka page so I gave them a call. It only took a few minutes for them to diagnose our issue. Apparently the lightning came in through a solenoid. I have no idea what that is, but the lightning hit there and burned up 2 of the ones we have. Steven knew what it was and made sure to correct me when I totally spelled it wrong in a text I sent to him. Anyway, both of those needed to be replaced. After that, it traveled around the house causing all the other issues. It also blew the sprinkler clock/controller. We knew that was blown but he verified it and after his visit, we knew where the lightning came from. It also helped to explain why every house around us also had sprinkler issues following the strike. Most of them were able to just reset their breakers and call it a day but we think our one neighbor's might have blown as well. He (luckily) didn't have any other damage though. Just the sprinklers. We apparently took the direct hit. So... you're welcome to all our neighbors that didn't get hit as hard since we seemed to have taken the brunt of it. ;) This let me check off another estimate on our growing list of quotes needed to satisfy the insurance company. It also made me fully aware of how serious lightning can be. A split second of electricity that ran through our house in less time that that caused as much damage as it did... and we were lucky there was no fire. I am very grateful that an annoying insurance claim is all we have to deal with after this incident.
Finding someone to assess the TV was harder than any of the others. Most companies I called wanted me to bring the TV to them but carting around a 73" TV that is bolted to a special stand is definitely not what I wanted to do. Or anything I could do. Finally, we settled on the Geek Squad. Mainly because they would come to us. The downfall was that we had to wait over a week after the lightning to have someone come out to look at it. The Geek Squad showed up right on time and it only took the two "Agents" (I was trying not to crack up that he has to refer to himself as that even when calling into their parts department) about 5 minutes to diagnose the issue and figure out the next step. It was easy enough... TV wouldn't turn on... parts are NLA (No Longer Available) so... total loss on the TV. Oh well. We tried.
At this point it was almost time to give a sigh of relief. All the estimates were done. The next step was to get all the paperwork together and get it over to our adjuster. We have done that now and we are currently in a waiting game. We can't make any more repairs until we have the adjuster approve them and some money in hand so we wait... I hope we get this taken care of shortly. I'm definitely ready to get back to my regular life. I'm looking forward to not rearranging schedules to make sure I'm here for people to come and worrying constantly about what may or may not be approved by the insurance. Hopefully the rest of the process will be fairly painless.
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