Lightning Facts

Property Owner Liability
OSHA requires the owner of a public building or structure to provide lightning protection "in areas where lightning storms are prevalent." (OSHA-NFPA standards, Federal Register H 1919.109 (i)(6)(iv) page 2203)

Many building owners look at their facilities much like they look at their homes.  They perceive lightning protection to be an option or choice.  While the homeowner is only responsible for his family or occasional visitor, the owner of a building that is accessed by the public assumes liability for those who enter his facility.  Every facility owner carries liability insurance to protect them or limit their liability for accidents that occur on their facility.  The modest cost of lightning protection can potentially remove an area of litigation from your liability.
 

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What is Lightning Protection?

A better question would be, what is lightning and how can I protect my family and property from it?

Lightning is an electrical discharge between a cloud and the earth below.  The lightning strike begins with a faint pre-discharge, called the leader, which travels from the negatively charged cloud downward to the positively charged earth.  This faint leader creates a path for the bright and powerful return stroke (what you actually see) which travels from the ground up to the cloud.  This entire process takes less than 1/4 of a second and releases typically 20,000 amps of current at voltages up to 1 billion volts!

How can we possibly protect our property from such an incredible force of nature?  The answer is actually very simple. The lightning travels from the clouds to the earth.  We can't change the location of the cloud, but we can change the location of what electricity perceives as earth. Our buildings which are attached to the earth become part of what electricity sees as the positively charged earth.  Lightning tends to strike the tallest structure which represents the shortest path to earth.  The billion volts and tens of thousands of amps of current travel through our building as it passes to earth causing massive destruction along the way.

A lightning protection system creates a path of least resistance from the top of your structure down to earth below.  
To the lightning, earth is now located on top of your building.  The lightning strike travels from the cloud directly to the lightning protection system which it sees as being earth.  The thousands of amps of current and billion volts bypass your structure and go immediately to earth.

 
   
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