Some buildings are more prone to attracting lightning during a lightning storm than others. When this happens, when the lightning hits a building it is rare that damage is done or people are harmed in any way whatsoever. Usually if the building is grounded properly the electricity trails off harmlessly into the ground and nobody even knows that the building was hit by lightning.
However, in some cases this is not the case. The building is not grounded properly or there are other factors that cause the lightning to actually do damage to appliances in the house. The lightning charge will seek out an electrical appliance and this is all too likely to be a computer, although any other electrical appliance may be attacked.
When this happens the electricity will go through either the electric wire or the communications cable such as the modem and it will damage one or more parts in the computer.
I have seen this happen myself when I was in my house a number of years ago and I had an old fashioned telephone dialer. The dialer was placed next to my telephone. I had an old fashioned telephone that you actually dialed. It had a round dial that you would turn. In order to have a speed dialer to call people I had a separate box next to the phone. The separate box was quite expensive and I could then push one button and I could have it automatically dial anybody that I wanted.
During an electrical storm I happened to be sitting at home at my desk and I happened to be looking at my dialer at the time that it was struck by lightning. There was a small wisp of smoke that rose from the dialer and that was it.
After that the dialer was toast. I tried to smell it but I didn't really smell anything that made me feel that it was burned. Later on when I opened it up I tried to smell the inside and understand if there was any smell of burning but I really couldn't. Perhaps there was a faint smell but even that may have been my imagination. It doesn't matter. The inside of the dialer wasn't black or anything but it was certainly burned out completely. It was useless.
What should you do?
During a lightning storm the best thing to do is unplug your computer and possibly even the communications line.
There are various devices which you can buy which control spikes. You can buy a UPS or other products but none of them are as effective as unplugging the cord. I have seen cases in which people have used these products. The products got burned and then the computer itself was damaged.
No, they received no compensation for the damage to the computer and the computer company refused to accept responsibility and the UPS manufacturer also refused to accept responsibility beyond replacing the burned out UPS itself.
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