Lightning Strike Closes Grand Caverns

[saltpeter]

Mysterious Lightning Strike Closes Caverns
Officials Hope To Open Saturday
By Hannah Northey, DNRonline.com

GROTTOES — Darkness continues to envelop Grand Caverns, America’s oldest show cave, after a lightning strike damaged the attraction’s electrical system earlier this month, officials there say.

Charmaine Detrow, an education coordinator at the Grottoes park, said caverns officials are still mystified as to how cables and a light box, which provide illumination for tours, were struck by lightning. She said the system is inside the cave with no exposure to the elements.

"There’s no doubt in our minds it got hit," she said. "The plastic switches are melted onto the metal box."

Guided tours in the Grand Caverns have been suspended since Aug. 17, the day after the lightning strike occurred, according to park officials.


www.dnronline.com/news_details.php?AID=11881&CHID=2

[Sharon Faulkner]

Interesting article. So, the lightning actually struck inside the cave or did it travel into the cave after striking outside the entrance. How far into the cave is the electrical box I wonder?

[Sharon Faulkner]

Okay, had to go look for more information on this. Here is a bit more:

Lightning struck a transformer at the park, causing a power surge (presumably to the electrical box) in the main cave.

www.whsv.com/news/headlines/9397071.html

[Brian Roebuck]

Yea that makes sense. The surge just followed the wires down into the cave where it was nicely grounded and dumped all that energy through the switches to ground. It was sort of a lightning rod effect. One of our phone wires got hosed by lightning last Friday. All the other ones in the house work fine except for this one. Very strange. Of course it is the main phone jack used by the phone we use most.

[Sharon Faulkner]

That made more sense to me too Dr. Beaner. I had the belief, perhaps mistakenly, that a cave was a relatively safe place to be during thunderstorms, and in fact have been in caves during severe thunderstorms with lightning.

[Brian Roebuck]

I've heard of cavers getting small currents through them while standing in cave water during electrical storms. That would be freaky indeed. I guess it depends on how much energy is passing through the rock and water as to whether you would feel it or not.

Bzzzzzzzztttttt!