During a thunderstorm, avoid contact with plumbing, corded phones and electrical equipment even after you move indoors. The National Weather Service (NWS) explains these precautions in its indoor lightning guidance[1].
Choose suitable shelter first: NWS identifies buildings with electricity and plumbing, or metal-topped vehicles with the windows closed, as safe shelters. Picnic shelters, dugouts and small buildings without plumbing or electricity are not safe lightning shelters.
Lightning can enter a structure through a direct strike, outside wires or pipes, or the ground. Once inside, it can travel through electrical, phone, plumbing and radio or television reception systems, as well as metal embedded in concrete.
What to avoid during the storm
- Put off showers, handwashing and dishwashing to avoid contact with plumbing.
- Stay off corded phones. NWS says cellular and cordless phones can be used.
- Do not touch computers, televisions, electrical cords or similar equipment. Remote controls can be used.
- Stay away from exterior windows and doors with metal components that may provide a path from outside to inside. Stay off balconies and porches, and out of open garages and carports.
- Do not lie on concrete floors or lean against concrete walls; lightning can travel through the metal wires or bars inside them.
Do not unplug equipment during the thunderstorm. NWS warns that doing so can expose you to a strike. Typical surge protectors will not protect equipment from a lightning strike, and surges can damage electronics some distance from the strike itself.
A doghouse is not suitable lightning shelter either. Dogs chained to trees or attached to metal runners are particularly vulnerable to strikes.
