sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Here's some lightning damage for you.

My stepson is a premises technician for at&t in the Atlanta area. He recently responded to multiple outage reports. Lightning took down a pole and the high voltage power crossed with the telephone cable. The first pic is of the NID that he encountered at the first location. The second two are of the nearby cross-connect box serving the area. The fourth and fifth are of what is left of a pedestal, where the cover was literally blown across the street with little evidence that it ever existed. Yes, it used to be light green. Take a look:

WOW! So they will have to replace that entire crossbox? What a nightmare!

And the liquefied cable.

Had one many years ago when it did the same to a pedestal. Jumped from a down guy to the pedestal. Took out a mile or so of cable too, all buried. Pretty rare in buried plant, but it happens.

Ive seen it when it took out drop wire. Just vaporized the copper and the insulation was turned into hard plastic, where if you tapped against a hard surface, it was like an icicle and just shattered.

Powerful stuff. Oh, and don't talk on your landline during an electrical storm :-)

Amazing! Thanks for sharing.

I remember my Dad telling me something similar while he worked for a phone company in rural Montana. He had never seen lightning go through a buried cable like that for such a long distance. I suppose it was a penny or two to replace it all..

Is that a roll of BLUE WHITE on the door? :confused: :confused:

Looks violet to me, lol

And I can imagine a number of service calls to replace triple play TV boxes as I am sure the surge went through the NID protector.

I bet that cabinet had a nice smell when he opened it up.......LOL.