It’s an old adage that "lightning never strikes twice." It’s becoming increasingly clear to me with time that this is bullshit.
Last week, the switch in my building (and everything plugged into it) was struck by lightning for the second time this year. Last time my whole computer needed to be replaced. This time, it was only the on-board Ethernet that seems to be fried. It means that my workstation is a much less effective router now but it beats buying a new computer.
Wikipedia has this to say about the whole thing:
The saying "lightning never strikes twice in the same place" is frequently disproven. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning on average 25 times each year, and was once struck 15 times in 15 minutes.
The Wikipedia page authors’ were also quick to dispel another hypothesis that, I’ll admit, had crossed my mind:
Some repeat lightning strike victims claim that lightning can choose its target, although this theory is entirely disregarded by the scientific community.
I think the real key to the `lightning never strikes the same thing twice’ adage is that most things are rarely the same after lightning strikes …
after a electricity spike destroyed two of my computers, i got several cheap UPSs from ebay…
should put me on the safe side next time (well, i’d only have to replace the UPSs)