Crazy Electricity and First World Problems

I love thunderstorms.  They are really one of my favorite things in this world.  I love watching them, hearing them, and being in the middle of them. 

It was during one of these wonderful parties of flashing lights, booming thunder and pounding rain that we got a little surprise.  Lightening struck...right on our house.  CRAAAAAAK!!! doesn't even describe the noise!  It was like someone took two 2x4s and slapped them together right next to my ear!

Immediately our tv went out, the smoke alarms in the house went off and our poor little dog who is afraid of storms went running. 

Funny thing, though, our lights didn't even flicker.  Not one.  Alarm clocks didn't re-set, appliances stayed on, ceiling fans kept going.

After about half an hour I called the cable company to ask if it was an area wide outage or if it was just a localized to our house problem.  Unfortunately it was a localized problem. 

The next thing we started to notice was that our air conditioner wasn't working, and our pool pump was on high.  Oh, and no phones. 

What I've learned in the past few days are that the lower voltage items are most at risk.  Phones (not the line..it's fine and we have an old school with a bell ringer right now!), air conditioner electrical panels and thermostats, cable for tv, HDMI circuits on flat screen tvs, are all more susceptible to lightening strikes than the major electrical systems in a house. 

All in all it will probably total just $1 less than our homeowners deductable.  grr.  But I am blessed.  We had no major damage, we had no fire, we had no injuries.  Just our First World problems.