Tom Sawyer

My wife keeps telling me that I shouldn't talk on the phone during a storm, because if a lightning bolt hits the phone line, I'll get electrocuted.

It seems to me that the phone lines wouldbe insulated against that sort of thing (I live in the middle of a big city) so that sort of thing wouldn't happen. I've also never heard of that happening.

Could you actually get electrocuted like that? It seems farfetched to me, but she's pretty convinced of it.

Corwin

A telephone is an electronic device connected to several thousand miles of copper conductive wire, with approximately a sixteenth of an inch of polymer insulation on the outside.

A lightning bolt is a discharge of electrostatic charge. Its electrical capacity can be measured in millions of electron volts, thousands of amps, millions of coulombs, and I don't even want to think about how many watts.

Do the math?

Jerry Love

As a general rule, electrical current (lightning) can travel along conductive wires (such as a phone line). While I am still befuddled how this happens in undergroundlines (wasn't the lightning seeking groudn to begin with), I've seen it and so cannot deny the reality.

In the middle of a major city (IOW, where the lines are run under building and pavement instead of under or over open ground) you may be reasonably immune.

Glory

Lightning rarely strikes the ground. Very often it originates from the ground and "travels" upward, though it appears to do the reverse. The current can travel through the ground for short distances, particularly if the ground is wet. It isn't hard for it to find wires underground.

One is protected from electrocution by phone not by insulated wires but by circuit breakers at the switching stations and all along the lines. They need to protect the entire system from getting fried. They protect the users in the process.

Glory

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: Glory ]</p>

Corwin

However I still wouldn't bet my life on them if I didn't have to. They generally work, but no system is foolproof.

Shadowy Man

It's only foolproof once you've electrocuted all of the fools.

Glory

There are few things that are utterly outside the realm possibility. Still, one really should look at the likelyhood of not just getting struck by lightning but getting sruck by lightning through the phone. I would not hesitate to use the phone during a lightning storm to, for instance, call for needed help.(911)

Glory

Abacus

Get a cordless phone.

Corwin

Like I said.... unless I really had to. The odds of it actually HAPPENING may be fairly small... but there's a question of minimizing risks.

Calling 911 would be an acceptable risk in my opinion. Calling my parents wouldn't be.

Arrowman

Woo-hoo! So not only can I call 000 [911] during a storm, I can stay on the sex talk line too!

Now all I need is a hands-free...

PS I agree with the above - the risk is very small, but why take it? It is standard advice from the phone company here to stay off the phone during electrical storms.