Do you also unplug devices from outlets when a storm is approaching?

Posted by New-Ranger-8960@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 57 comments

In most regions of Greece, electricity is delivered via overhead power lines rather than underground cables, and in villages and rural areas, these lines extend over long distances. This makes lightning strikes to poles, cables, and even direct hits to houses very likely and dangerous. As a result, it is advisable to unplug all important devices from power outlets, including TV antenna and DSL cables and almost essential when loud thunder is approaching or beginning.

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Revolutionary-Break2@reddit

the expensive devices, yes

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Substantial_Bet_1007@reddit

out of context but can someone locate the place of this video?

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dwartbg9@reddit

It's obviously AI. But if you want this in real life, just go to some villages in the mountainous areas of Bulgaria around May-June. You'll have the exact same view and atmosphere.

Villages around the Rhodopes or near the Balkan mountain range, for example.

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Substantial_Bet_1007@reddit

AI?? Oh my god what made you think its ai i cant really put my finger on it and im shocked it could be first time i failed to detect ai

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dwartbg9@reddit

The "halo/ghosting effect" around the arm.

Some of the buildings on the right look janky.

The blur is also disproportionate and not what a DSLR or even a cell-phone would do. And overall I'd say you can just sense it, somehow our brains can detect it, at least with such images that are done by older models (not talking about the latest ones, like NanoBanana or Sora2 which are scarily realistic).

Still the image doesn't look that AI-ish at first glance, I know. And as I also said, there are really such villages and scenery here on the Balkans, you can easily find the exact same view.

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HorrorsPersistSoDoI@reddit

Can confirm

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bn911@reddit

Seems AI to me.

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Kisobran_kolica@reddit

Only if I'm at Skyfall castle

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biokaniini@reddit

No, I thought we stopped doing that 15 years ago

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TurinTurambarSl@reddit

I thought so too, then a ligthing near my house caused my pc to crash .. i mean it caused windows to crash and corrupt my hard drive (just need to format it again) so idk, at least you should turn off the apliances

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nevermidit@reddit

When you moves to Finland?

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biokaniini@reddit

No, I moved to Finland 2 years ago.

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Mysterious-Power6137@reddit

TIL: (Time passes 7,5 times slower in Finland.)

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biokaniini@reddit

Frankly, it does. This dark November is driving me crazy and it's still not snowing.

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faramaobscena@reddit

What happened 15 years ago?

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biokaniini@reddit

Nothing in particular, I think the last time I plugged off devices during storm was approximately 15 years ago. I probably figured out I can't live without internet connection for 5 minutes and decided that it's better to die.

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Suitable-Decision-26@reddit

In the city, honestly not. I use surge protectors, too. In the country, yes. Just last year I had lamps burst over my head because a lighting fell close enough.

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the-unknown-nibba@reddit

First things that I remove are the PC and router. After that the TV's and other stuff that I can reach.

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tegriddysmesh@reddit

of course every damn time. i am worried about the fridge in the village though, i hope it isnt fried after the last thunderstorm.

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David69_1@reddit

Yes

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Green_Carpenter_9477@reddit

It depends

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nikolapc@reddit

There are surge protectors. My important devices are my electronics, fridges are replacable.

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Hot-Cauliflower5107@reddit

Yes especially older people grew up in the communism. Back then even in the cities the reliability of electricity networks was incredibly poor by todays standard...it was common to have several unannounced power outages every week at least in North Macedonia. Electricity will just randomly cut for a few hours and when it gets back the voltage might fluctuate wildly causing damage to appliances.

Of course most people didn't had a ground connection, surge protectors were unheard of and even the slightest storm might cause massive voltage spikes on the electric network. So people will just hurry up to plug off everything from the wall in order not to get damaged. I mean it was lucky that there were much appliances with sensitive electronics back then, most sensitive thing most people had was radio or TV receiver. In todays time it will be utter disaster with all the PC's, laptops, wifi routers and cell phones.

Realistically today the reliability of electric networks is far better and I haven't heard of appliances damaged by a storm unless like lighting directly struck their house or the electricity in front of it. Still many people still disconnect appliances during storm, of course things like refrigerators are not disconnected.

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xBlackDot@reddit

Many many years ago, my brother lost his entire multimedia equipment in his room due to a lightning strike that hit the overhead cable wooden pole just outside our house. It was a chain reaction from the electricity plug of the internet router, to the ethernet cable aaaall the way to his computer, which was connect to an amplifier, which was connected to 5.1 speaker system and the TV. We were living in a village back then and there was no lightning rod/conductor anywhere in the village to prevent from such occurrences.

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Emirovskii@reddit

Never in my life

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NightZT@reddit

It's still advisable to unplug even when you have ground connection. I got a ground connection a year ago and still a lightning strike triggered the overvoltage protection because it hit the overland lines connecting via a trafo to the underground line.

Years ago a lightning hit the rooftop power pole of my parents house and destroyed my mums pc and one plate of the oven, so since then I'm very very careful

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s8n_codes@reddit

I agree with you, this is a thing that can and did and still does happen. The induced currents resulting from a lightning strike hitting an aerial line or a transformation post can and will trigger your over voltage protection (in the best case this is all that will happen) but if your protections are not coordinated or you don’t have a good grounding belt/poles you do run the risk of those currents affecting the equipment that is plugged in in your house.

Source: engineer

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_ruderalis_@reddit

Similar thing happened to me. I was gaming on my laptop when all of a sudden lightning struck my neighbours roof and i got mildly electrocuted through palm rest of my laptop. There was a power outtage and my router and laptop was fried, fortunately nothing else.

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Lumpy-Check134@reddit

Yep. One of the most Balkan things. When i've done it in America when I was visiting a girlfriend she and her parents asked what I was doing. I said to protect the devices during strom, they said "You don't have ups?"

I responded with why throw money on something that isn't necessary? Balkan style check mate.

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rewarrr@reddit

is that your picture? if so holy shit you have nice view there!

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Few-Interview-1996@reddit

Err, no.

Dunno about random villages though.

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Trypta_Man@reddit

Electrician here - yes, I do because I don't have any electrical grounding on the house.

If you don't have a grounded house, you definitely should unplug your outlets, because you never know what TYPE of lightning storm is it going to be (there's like ~4 'common' different yet naturally occuring types of lightning)

Basically your electronics might get ultra powered for a moment and then break or they get super drained of electricity and break, but the latter is generally uncommon (depends on your location geographics and weather patterns) or literally something in between, balancing things out in those few moments

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ThanksAlternative614@reddit

Answer mostly depends where I am located at that time.

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ConsciousPoet254@reddit

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JuiceInternational81@reddit

No. Too many devices are plugged into the outlets. Also, the last few times when a big storm hit our neighbourhood, nobody was at home to take care of it.

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Final-Nebula-7049@reddit

not since we invented reliable surge protectors

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corruptea@reddit

there are way worse issue with electricity in the balkans than the one you mentioned

Majority of balkaners have no idea that the majority of old electrical substations, transformers we use have malfuctioned and releases periodically in the air electromagnetic waves that its not regulated for safety levels and unfortunately, because its too "expensive" to fix this, our national regulatory body for electricity dosent care at all

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