Lighting Protection

This business about antenna lightning safety has gotten me more interested in lightning safety in general.

From what I've read, people are safest inside buildings (and cars) because the lightning tends not to come inside.  However grounding gradients can be created which destroy equipment inside (and that is the purpose of the ground bonding required both for lightning rods AND rooftop aerials).

During storm, you should not be contacting anything wired to the outside, either AC electrical or wired telephone.  Cordless phones are OK.  Plumbing is not safe either.

There has actually been controversy over how lighting rods and similar measures work.  But essentially they direct the lightning currents to ground away from the structure.  Even if the wires themselves don't survive the strike, they will have done their job.

Do lightning rods "attract" lightning, or "repel" it.  This article says that generally metal objects are too small to "attract" lightning.  The same would apply to lightning rods...however a different source suggests they DO have a small "attracting" effect comparable to the height of the rod (even though that is not much).  Benjamin Franklin himself theorized a 45 degree cone of protection that occurs precisely because of this attracting effect; that 45 degree cone has been debunked but there is some region of influence similar to that.

In certain cases (such as big data centers) it may be more useful to "repel" lightning than try to attract and divert it.  And there are a variety of crazy looking and sometimes patented measures to do this and an engineering firm which specializes in it...but this is way out of the mainstream.

Many tall radio transmitting towers do attract lightning...and lighting strikes on such facilities happen often and the ones with well designed old fashioned diversion measures generally survive without major problems.

Actual lightning rods require VERY heavy wire such as 0 or 2 gauge, at least 3 ground rods, and ground bonding.  There is no "good" reason (except not insignificant cost!) why houses such not have such things.  But obviously taller and bigger structures are more at risk, and more money may be available for protective measures as well.