I live in a somewhat safe region, as far as natural disasters go. We don’t live near the sea, so there’s no threat of hurricanes or tsunamis. I’m nowhere near any fault lines, so we don’t ever experience earthquakes of any magnitude. Overall, the only things we have to watch out for are blizzards and tornados from time to time. That’s why it was so scary when a bolt of lightning struck my house. It didn’t hurt me or my animals, luckily, but it did absolutely demolish my HVAC system. It was a pretty stormy night but I felt secure in my big old house, until a huge crack of lightning broke the silence and my house went dark. When the power came back on, the AC unit did not. I went outside to check the equipment out, but the central cooling machine appeared to be fine. There were no burn marks or broken branches around the air conditioner, so I went back inside. I flipped several fuses, thinking that the air conditioning might simply need to be reset, but still did not hear the trust AC kick into gear. Finally, I called out an HVAC professional to take a look at all the central cooling equipment for me. After a few minutes of poking around outside, he pinpointed the real problem inside. My thermostat had been shocked by the lightening bolt and the inner workings were completely fried. I had to spend $200 on a brand new temperature control system that day, all because of a little static electricity.