About three years ago, a couple of months after we moved into our house, my wife was reading in bed one Saturday morning. She noticed the bedside light was becoming brighter than usual. About 5 seconds later she heard a "POP" from the basement and all the lights went out.
They stayed out for about 10 hours as a repair crew fixed the damage caused by a pick-up hitting a utility pole about two miles from our house. Apparently he was running from the police when he slammed into the pole, causing the power line to fall and connect with the neutral line, sending enough juice to blow out the entire town and voltage in outlets to go up to about 160. People were throwing burning microwaves and tvs out their doors.
We lost our 10 year-old 27" Magnavox and a Sony vcr. Had to update to a Sony Trinitron (oh,well).
Cadboy, we figured if we had put in a claim our insurance would have gone up more than the cost for replacements.
Our contractor came to check the electricals and said he was glad we had him re-wire the house before we moved in (all the wiring was the two-copper-wires-wrapped-with-tape kind.It's a 100 year-old one-room schoolhouse renovated in the 50's). We would have lost the house if he hadn't.
The $30.00 power strip/spike protector I bought for the computer (the purchase of which I received a reprimand by she who must be obeyed) worked perfectly. There were scorch marks on the strip where the computer had been plugged, but the computer was fine.
She went right out and bought three more.



[This message has been edited by CBWills (edited May 27, 2004).]