[TowerTalk] More Ligttning news

[Ken Anderson]

The following is extracted from a local news report.
The grape growers use a grid of elevated wires
to support the grapes and drip water systems. 
Something similar to elevated radials.

Ken, K6PU

Lightning strikes 3

LODI -- Three workers picking grapes Tuesday afternoon 
near Lodi were struck by lightning, knocked to the ground 
and rushed by ambulance to Lodi Memorial Hospital.

Weather experts said the vineyard workers were lucky, 
as they could have been fatally shocked or burned by the 
lightning.

"People don't understand how dangerous lightning really 
is," said Steve Anderson, a forecaster with the National 
Weather Service. "A bolt of lightning can reach several 
thousand degrees. Lightning kills more people each year 
than tornadoes and hurricanes combined."

The three struck Tuesday were among about 50 workers 
harvesting zinfandel grapes in a vineyard off Highway 88.

Around noon, the skies clouded over and flashes of 
lightning appeared.

"It was getting dark. Then the lightning came, and it 
was kind of scary because it was so close," said 
Antonio Vargas, one of the workers.

Suddenly, a bolt crackled down directly into the vineyard, 
striking a steel crossbar and a wire supporting the vines, 
witnesses said.

"The lightning hit the bar and the wire, then jumped into 
the workers and knocked them down," said Gonzalo 
Cabral, who was working nearby. 

Witnesses later pointed out grim remnants of the lightning's 
power. A steel bar, apparently the point of the bolt's initial 
impact, lay gashed, as if gnawed by a chain saw. The support 
wire attached to it was left curled and dangling among the vines. 
And a portable radio worn by one of the men looked as if it 
had been stuck with a sledgehammer


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