Many people wonder about the safety of showering during a thunderstorm, often believing being indoors offers complete protection. However, lightning can enter a home through various systems, making certain precautions advisable.
How Lightning Reaches Homes
Lightning seeks the path of least electrical resistance from a thundercloud to the ground. Homes contain numerous conductive pathways, including metal components and utility lines connected to the outside. Lightning can travel through electrical wiring, telephone lines, cable television lines, and metal plumbing pipes. Even concrete walls and floors with metal rebar can be hazardous if they contain these embedded materials.
Risks of Showering During Thunderstorms
Showering or bathing during a thunderstorm presents a genuine, albeit low, risk because water and the plumbing system can conduct electricity. Lightning can strike a house and travel through its pipes, potentially delivering a harmful electrical shock to anyone in contact with water or plumbing fixtures. This risk exists because most household plumbing contains metal components that are excellent conductors of electricity. Even if a home has plastic plumbing pipes, tap water contains dissolved minerals and impurities, such as ions, which enable it to carry an electrical charge. If lightning strikes the ground nearby or directly hits the home’s plumbing system, the electrical energy can travel through the water and fixtures, making contact with a person potentially dangerous.
Other Indoor Lightning Hazards
Beyond showering, several other indoor activities and objects can pose a risk during a thunderstorm. About one-third of lightning-strike injuries occur indoors. Any item connected to outdoor utility lines or containing metal that extends outside can become a conduit for lightning. Using corded telephones is unsafe because lightning can travel through the phone lines into the house. Similarly, touching electrical equipment like computers, televisions, washing machines, or other appliances plugged into outlets can be dangerous. Additionally, leaning against concrete walls with rebar or lying on concrete floors can transmit an electrical charge.
Staying Safe Indoors
To minimize the risk of lightning-related injuries indoors, several precautions are recommended during a thunderstorm. Avoiding contact with water and plumbing is a primary safety measure, meaning refraining from showering, bathing, washing dishes, or washing hands until the storm has passed. It is also advisable to stay away from corded phones, electrical appliances, and outlets. Unplugging electronic devices can help protect them from power surges caused by lightning. Staying clear of windows, doors, and concrete surfaces that might contain metal elements.