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THE DEADLY BOLT IS COMPLICATED AND FASCINATING
By Dana Peck
Special to the Florida State Times
It is well known that unprotected trees in open fields are favorite targets of lightning bolts.
But what are other potential dangers of deadly lightning? Is it dangerous to talk on the telephone during lightning strikes?
Should computer phone lines be unplugged as protection from lightning?
Are more women struck by lightning inside the home and more men outside?
Do more homes in the North have lightning rods than those in the South, even though lightning is more likely to strike in the South?
Those are just samples of questions about lightning that have intrigued the curious. Some questions have especially challenged two electrical engineering associate professors at the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering for more than six years, and the answers they've uncovered may protect more of us from the effects of lightning strikes.
"...There's a lack of information out there," said Leonard Tung. "Lightning is a very complex subject."
Since the early 1990s, Tung and Bing Kwan have been researching the dangers of lightning with grants from the Florida Department of Transportation and the federal government.
Their most recent research project is centered on analyzing the effects of lightning on airport runway lights. Next to towers at airports, the lighting system that guides pilots to safe landings is a main attraction for lightning, according to the two researchers.
To gather data for their study, Tung and Kwan are using the runway lights along the landing strips at Tallahassee airport as a laboratory for their assessments.
Tung and Kwan were awarded the research dollars for the airport project after compiling research on two other lightning projects. The first study the team tackled was limited to the towers on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge near Tampa. Tampa, they said, has a reputation of being the lightning-strike capital of the United States.
"You're asking for trouble (living on Tampa Bay)," said Tung.
The study focused on the aviation beacons shining from the bridge's towers. Protection from lightning, they said, was an afterthought in building the towers, a common oversight in older constructions.
The results of the bridge study were recommendations for improvement that would make flying safer for pilots depending on the beacon lights to warn them during storms.
After completing the bridge project, Tung and Kwan were soon asked to work on another.
In the mid-1990s, researchers from the University of Florida asked the team for an electronic guide on lightning's behavior. The electronic handbook is a type of software that would assist the UF researchers.
"They want to verify their data by using our assimilation," Kwan said.
Until Tung and Kwan began to compile the research, data on lightning was scattered, Tung said.
The project is completed, but the information remains at the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering until coordinated with UF, they said.
As byproducts of their studies, Tung and Kwan have walking-talking fact books about lightning and its dangers.
And to quash any curiosity, they said that all the answers to the opening
questions are yes.