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WeatherMatrix
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Prohibited. Usage logged.
From: Jesse Ferrell (WeatherMatrix) (jesse{at}weathermatrix.net)
Date: Wed Jan 14 2004 - 08:00:48 EST
FULL STORY:
http://www.amnews.com/public_html/?module=displaystory&story_id=4377&format=html
QUOTES:
"New Year's Eve they ran into a delay. The couple were in the middle of a
different run, to Dallas, when they drove into a rare winter thunderstorm
at 8 p.m. near New Madrid, Mo., on Interstate 55.
"We were probably going about 70 miles per hour, it was pouring down rain,
and all of a sudden I thought we'd been hit by another vehicle," said Sparks.
"This huge ball of fire was right up in front of the truck, and all the
lights went out and the truck went in neutral. I figured out right then
we'd been hit by lightning."
The immediate sensation, Sparks said, was of unbelievably bright light
everywhere inside the truck.
"It was so bright it almost blinded me," he said. "Ruby was in the bed in
the back of the cab, and the force jarred her forward to hit the safety
netting. And the sound - if you've ever heard a tire on one of those big
trucks blow out, imagine holding your ear right next to it when it blows.
That's what it sounded like inside that cab."
Sparks said the bolt knocked out the power steering on the truck, leaving
him to wrestle the big rig to the side of the road.
"It was pretty touchy there for a minute, because the lightning knocked out
the lights, and I couldn't see where to pull over," he said. "I used the
lights from cars behind me to find the shoulder, and finally got it pulled
off enough to be out of the way."
According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, a research arm of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the parent group of the
National Weather Service, no place is absolutely safe from lightning, which
it estimates strikes somewhere in the United States nearly every day of the
year.
However, according to NOAA, "In general, fully enclosed metal vehicles such
as cars, trucks, buses, vans, fully enclosed farm vehicles, etc. with the
windows rolled up provide good shelter from lightning. Avoid contact with
metal or conducting surfaces outside or inside the vehicle."
Sparks said he begs to differ.
"That stuff strikes wherever it wants to, and that old myth about being on
rubber tires keeping you safe is just that, a myth," he said. "I believe
those rubber tires might have kept it from being any worse than it was, but
it didn't keep us from being hit."
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