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Show iimtmi p w m ni n iw yio rri r1 r i r y i r ' rri rn i i yip y w m i The Park Record D Section B For the week of Sept. 1-7 B1 n Thursday, Sept. 1,1994 Lightning gives summer a little charge by AMBER McKEE Record staff writer "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven," Luke, 10:18 It's about two a.m. Something woke me up, I'm not sure what, but I'm lying back in my bed watching the storm clouds, white and luminous in the full moon, roll over the Masonic Hill ridge line. It's an odd sensation, looking up and back, my eyes vulnerable as my head rests against the window sill. Suddenly I'm blinded for a moment by the light of 1,000 camera flashes, and a bursting roar of thunder shakes the panes. Yep. It's a thunderstorm the kind that makes you glad you're inside looking out. (In addition to being full, the moon is in the astrological sign of Aquarius, which rules electricity, fittingly enough.) I get up to close the kitchen windows as the hard spatter of hail-like rain hits. The wind is whipping through the buildings, making a sound that you might hear coming out of cheap speakers in a carnival haunted house. As I glance out of the window above the sink, I see lights flicker on in other apartments; I can hear my housemate shutting her window in her room and know I'm not the only one the storm is keeping up. My dog is inconsolably afraid of the storms. She huddles down at the bottom of the bed under all the sheets and blankets, miserably hot but too scared to move. Or, she hides in the tub and shivers helplessly, wide-eyed with fear. I'm not certain which scares her the most the brilliant blinding flash of light rupturing the black night or the monstrous clap of thunder as air rushes to fill the void. I wonder if she hears voices in its cacophony. I've been caught in my share of thunderstorms already this summer. There was the two-day storm back in July which thoroughly soaked my computer. (After the driest June on record, the concept of wet especially wet coming in the windows had kind of escaped me.) Oh yeah, and that zinger on top of the Goshutes with nothing between me and the electricity but the tent. (God bless REI.) That was the kind of storm where I was huddled down at the bottom of my sleeping bag, miserable, but too scared to move. About half way through the storm, it struck me that I was laying on the metal zipper of my bag and that my metal flashlight was suspended from the inside of the top of the tent like a lightning rod directed at my head. The air was so charged with electricity, my teeth ached and my arm hair was standing on end. Too late it occurred to me that those burned dead trees I had seen earlier scattered across the ridge were probably lightning struck. I spent the night alternating Goshutes, that bristle cone pine trees don't enjoy the same result.) Children sing about the reindeer Dormer and Blitzen at Christmas, named for German "thunder" and "lightning" respectively. (Along the same vein, the German-style of air warfare was dubbed 'Blitz krieg,' because of their lightning- fast offensive.) We study Ben Franklin and his between wondering whether I was going to die and wondering if it was silly to wonder whether I was going to die. As it turns out, dying is a legitimate concern for hikers and campers in a thunderstorm. According to the National Weather Service, 163 people a year are killed by lightning in the United States. That's more than tornadoes or hurricanes. Lightning has been a part of our folklore since time began. It's very probable that the Greek myth of Prometheus, who gave fire to mankind and, in the words of one writer. "got stomped for it" came from lightning (if not the actual fire). Ancient dwellers of Ireland and Scotland used to put two sticks of rowan, hazel or ash together and bind them with red "worsted" or string to protect themselves in thunderstorms. Other times, hazel twigs were placed in the window frames as protection. Spring wort, St. John's wort and the elder tree were believed to have the same effect. (I can safely say, however, judging oh-l from the famous foray with the kite and the key in grade school. Incidently, one famous bust of Franklin reads, "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis," which translated means, "He snatched the lightning shaft from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants," in honor of Franklin and his invention, the conductor. In light(ning) of all this, here are some suggestions about how to behave in a thunderstorm (to avoid spending the night like I did, awake and shaking). Light travels faster than sound and so therefore it follows that lightning travels faster than thunder nearly a million times faster, as a matter of fact. To track the distance of a storm (and therefore the time you have to get to safety) count the seconds between the flash of lightning and the crash of the thunder (one, one-thousand; two, one-thousand; three, and so on...). Divide that number by five to find out how many miles away the storm is. In the middle of an electrical storm, you want insulation, not conductivity. Avoid metal objects, like tent poles, fishing rods, and flash lights. Avoid high places or flat places (where you are the tallest thing available to become a human lightning rod.) Avoid water and moist ground. Avoid the path of least resistance. Like water, lightning goes with the easiest flow, like cracks and gullies. Avoid shallow caves, as you can become the circuit that conducts the bolt from wall to wall. Avoid clustering in a group, as the current can jump from body to body even if you aren't touching. Do, if you get caught out in the open, crouch on the balls of your feet, . while standing on some type of insulation, like a sleeping bag. Keep your hands off the ground. Lightning injures in one of three ways: a direct hit; an indirect hit (getting "splashed" with electricity that hits a nearby object, the most common type of injury), and; an injury due to the force of the shock wave. This may be an old wives' tale, but it's probably a good idea to unplug electrical appliances. A direct strike can blow out the TV or the computer, not to mention, cause a fire in the wiring. So, rum off the tube. Also, stay out of the bath tub. Metal pipes and water, need I say more? Also, close the windows. Lightning can come in through an open one. (And, according to one friend of mine, have a hard time finding its way back out. It'll keep bouncing around the room, she said, trying to find an exit until you give it one hopefully not yourself.) Oh yeah. Have plenty of candles and battery-run alarm clocks on hand. The old "the lightning knocked out the power and turned off my alarm" excuse usually only works once with the boss. (Sources include "Mountaincraft: Lightning," Summit, August 1994; "Swords from the Sky," Backpacker, August 1994, and; "The Hand of Destiny: Folklore and Superstition for Everyday Life," by C.J.S. Thompson, Bell Publishing, 1989.) 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