Lightning took out a 12 port tap in Council Bluffs and I spent 3 hours chasing the wrong problem
About two weeks ago we had a nasty storm roll through Council Bluffs and I got sent out on a service call the next morning. Customer said her internet had been out since the night before, so I figured easy job, bad modem or a loose fitting somewhere. I checked the drop, swapped the modem twice, tested every outlet in the house, all reading normal on my meter but she still had nothing. Turns out a strike had cooked a 12 port tap up on the pole about four houses down, and the whole node was limping along at half power. What got me was that my meter showed green the whole time because the signal was technically there, just not strong enough to do anything useful. Back when I started we mostly worried about water in the fittings and squirrels chewing the drop, not lightning frying the gear on the pole. I climbed up, swapped in a spare tap, and she was streaming again in ten minutes. Has anyone else run into taps getting zapped like that, and do you bother checking the pole before you start tearing apart the house?