Good Question

What Don't You Know About Lightning?

DENVER (CBS4) ― At Matthews Winters Park, where a man was killed recently by lightning, storms can make people nervous. "Oh yeah, definitely. When you're up on the top of these hills and you can see the lightning in the distance," said one hiker. "Especially up on that ridge," said a woman who often runs the trials in the area.

Lightning is an obvious danger in a storm. Experts say there have been strikes measured in Colorado as far as 40 miles from the cloud where it originated.

Richard Kithil Jr. makes a living from it at his National Lightning Safety institute.

"Lightning is as thick as your thumb," Kithil said. "That's the center of the bolt. It's moving at about one-third the speed of light and that translates into about a 1,000 feet in a millionth of a second."

Obviously there's no outrunning it. Kithil measures lightning danger by thunderstorm days. The Denver metro area has about 70 to 75 of them a year. Colorado's mountains get about 85 to 90. That and the higher elevation that puts the mountains closer to the clouds are reasons there's more lightning in the mountains. Kithil said Cheyenne Mountain, where the military has its forest of antennas for the NORAD facility, is the most lightning-prone area of Colorado. Half of all the wildfires in the West are started by lightning.

While the greatest number of lightning strikes occur in Florida and across a crescent along the Gulf Coast, Colorado has ranked second in deaths to Florida over the past ten years. The government says 30 died in Colorado between 1997 and 2006. There were 71 deaths in Florida.

Kithil said the most expensive civilian lightning loss on record was a Denver warehouse where turkeys were stored. It was hit on July 23, 1997. Damage to building and the turkeys and other things that were stored exceeded $50 million. The insurance industry counts up about $5 billion a year in claims paid out from lightning.

There are a lot of myths about lightning. We'll start with an easy one; that it never strikes twice. Not so. The Empire State Building alone is hit about 25 times a year. Many people believe when victims are hit by lightning they can't be touched because they still hold a charge. Not true.

"In fact you should provide CPR and get that person's heart started immediately," Kithil said.

It's different if a person has been shocked by a downed power line. The power line could still be delivering a charge. Stay away. In fact, if a power line is down on a vehicle, stay back at least a dozen yards and tell them to stay in the vehicle. Emergency officials can shut off the power or help people jump away from vehicles landing two feet at a time to hop away from danger. The power forms a circle around a car that can shock many feet away. But with lightning it's different. It comes and goes immediately, Kithil said.

Most people who are hit by lightning are struck indirectly. That's why standing beneath a lone tree is dangerous. Singular trees are good conductors since they hold a lot of water. People too.

"We are 65 percent salt water by volume, so we're very good conductors," Kithil said. "Lightning does something called 'flashing over,' or arcing over from a known conductor to an unintended conductor."

That also starts a lot of house fires. If there's lightning on an open trail look for a clump of trees or bushes. Chances of avoiding a strike will be better. Nothing but real shelter is truly reliable protection.

Cars offer protection, but with a couple of caveats. Convertibles don't. Neither do cars that are largely plastic. ," Kithil said the rubber tires don't protect you.

"Lightning doesn't care about rubber tires because it has traveled miles through the sky and four or five inches of rubber on a tire makes no difference whatsoever," Kithil said.

It's the metal skin of the car or truck that offers lightning a path.

"Lightning flows around the metal surface of this metal box leaving the people inside safe," Kithil said.

Kithil said if you haven't been able to avoid the lightning with shelter, get into a crouching position with your feet together and your hands over your ears to protect against the concussive effects. Separate yourself by 15 feet from others, because they too are potential conductors.

As far as a house, he has no lightning rods on his house. He goes for surge protectors and grounding.

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