In order to survive, the human species has needed to keep its calculations calibrated so that there was some measure of what many generically classify as fear.
For example, if mankind had not feared the elements so greatly, we wouldn't have skyscrapers. Certainly skyscrapers are more of the engineering feat intended to boldly challenge the mind of man, but every construct can have a designation of shelter against the measure of weather conditions at any given moment.
Tolerance is a term not only applied to how much sway a child may hold over a parent when a household rule is broken, but the physical engineering process, let alone research in skeleton formation, relies on a measure of tolerance to be built into an object so that it can withstand a checklist of some form before receiving a "good to go" stamp of release approval. Taller buildings are built to sway. Shorter buildings have added elements of protection, depending on how low to the ground they are.
We also have had to hold a great deal of faith that somehow, somewhere, someway, somehow, at least tomorrow will hold better prospects. Days upon nights of dazed and confused record-keeping, hazy shades of black and white life and death sweeps of statistics all swamp out the idea there is somewhere around 7 billion people on this planet. I have no physical confirmation of this number. I have faith that since I have not been informed of any events severely changing this number, I am pretty accurate at this moment in my relying on such a number playing a role in something so abstract as a discussion about codes and lightning rods.
I had no idea it was possible to track lightning strikes with such precision nowadays. In fact, if I assert another leap of faith that the content I was viewing via a computer screen regarding the topic is at least generically truthful, not only can we track lightning strikes from the top down, with evidence from the bottom, a variety of people can then issue a layer of potential credibility that the markings left upon a structure were possibly left behind due to a bolt of energy dropping from the sky and landing on the spot records are saying it did.
It is when consideration is given to why anyone would even care about any of the tendrils of an otherwise stunning and guaranteed original light show in the sky, it is in the headlines that roll through my news readers telling the toll of a weather event, at least in summary of the event, that an additional feature of the aftermath of the storm is the forward-thinking math being pulled out and plopped onto a variety of desks and let the codification of a new set of forward-thinking math begin...
Now even though I have taken at least a few knocks in the nuts while being chided and chastised for simply not "taking one for the Team USA," it still remains curious for an uneducated woman such as myself how and when weather control instruments will surface and in what context and setting. The passing of the 2008 Beijing Olympics provided a collection of headlines citing ability to create rainfall, let alone shift clouds, but this stuff has been going on for decades now and we still have no section in building code books addressing the issue of lightning and setting forth some measure of standard to be achieved, with the forward-looking objective being a lowering of the number of events irrelevant of the cost of any single lightning strike that actually causes damage.
Yes, we certainly have to carry levels of faith inside of us in order to tamp down on enough instinctive fear so that we can continue attempting to operate in a more civil manner, provided the assumption is that the default instinct of good is not anything more than a preferred ideal to recognize when present and accounted for. Questions of how many people pace back and forth in their homes during a storm relative to the number that can sleep through virtually any storm play a role in reasoning for a severe stepping back from existing building codes and welcome to the wonderment over what building structure was actually hit by lightning and perhaps more importantly, what lightning rod system design would have/could have prevented such an event from occuring seems to be simple enough. Even I can study drawings on the net and shop around for pricing and the pricing suggests means and methods are available to provide at least one level of effort to divert what could otherwise become perhaps a moment of life and death challenge of unknown proportions.
Even with one of my many favorite kicking posts being lovingly battered and bruised (the insurance industry) with my commentary in the past, most let go of their fear of lightning once they are inside a building structure. The lessons of how to react during a storm drips into our existence on an as-it-happens basis, but when one begins to search for answers as to just how much tolerance a structure can handle should lightning occur (I'm thinking the more rods, the greater the energy surge load capacity?), with an awareness that the taller a structure is, the more attractive it is to these electrical events, even the insurance community has feared the consequences of tinkering with the weather for far more than just their balance sheet, but it is exactly their balance sheets that stand to lose the greatest amount of direct wealth while the rest of the communities across the world ooze results from their own weather-related events.
Is it really so crazy to think it's crazy to believe absence of this topic in its entirety in the building code books is some sort of "Oooppss! Sorry! Didn't think of that one! We'll get it in there right away" line of thinking that continues to blockade any inclusion of this topic in the minds of thousands of people scribbling away at drawings for new buildings, fixing old ones, building new ones
The Grandfather clause has always been posed as the bane of the very existence of a community, let alone developing a seemingly prosperous one. One does not need to wish intentional harm upon anyone to push a hurry up and wait feature of what a Grandfather clause represents. Basically, you cannot be found guilty for an act that was not illegal at the time of the event. Therefore a building not built to current code specifications in 2012 is protected through mens rea means suggesting that there was no intent to violate existing laws simply because existing laws didn't exist when the building went up.
One twister of this path is a need for a community to have some sort of plan in place for developing an attractive measure of safety-related features amongst an otherwise enjoyable area to live, work, play and shop in. That takes some measure of cooperation, whether its adapting a belief towards a "taking one for the team" (I still ponder of how many families have never been reunited after a divide between an issue such as the length of ones hair, let alone the choice of partners left all sides finished with one another in terms of civility being a boundary at work within a relationship structure) or perhaps finding a different approach for something otherwise disturbing or distressing. For example, there has been rumblings regarding all those who cited the term Joker prior to a recent event, but is such rumblings any different than a member of the US military being quoted in a Time Magazine from World War II mentioning that the Hitler mentioned in the headlines could go ahead and change his name, this military member was keeping his entirely intact.
Faith relies on compassion and contemplation to formulate a measure of sensitivity to anyone other than one's self and many by default believe a building has at least some measure of protection from lightning. We've known about its destructive capabilities for centuries and who knows what effects are being triggered thanks to cigarette-sized whatevers causing the clouds to cry (couldn't help the metaphor).
Just how many communities still have pieces of property protected by a Grandfather clause in some fashion may be a relatively uknown quantifier, but lightning sure does have the chance to cause enough damage to force decision upon the building owner to either fix or face fines. How far along the timeline any single event travels before one or the other happens is part and parcel of cascading elements taking up resources that could perhaps otherwise be focused elsewhere, especially in a courtroom. How many cases have been argued in some fashion
By not mandating some measure of protection for structures from lightning, one cannot eliminate the temporary conclusion that someone somewhere actually wants to see these types of fights and struggles to keep going at the pace and clip they travel both in and out of the revolving doors of the Halls of Justice, let alone those who are resigned to accepting their community simply cannot afford yet another mandate imposed no matter what the forward-looking risks are.
Is this issue really that big of a deal? On a single balance sheet, perhaps not, perhaps maybe, perhaps even a yes every now and again. It all depends on who's balance sheet one is looking at and who looks what way. A community that can finally condemn a building that has been sitting vacant for 10+ years because of the damage imposed upon the structure due to the weather even triggers a check perhaps being cut on behalf of the property owner who lost the use of the building and peace can flow through the land that the eyesore was finally removed after years of having to keep watch over something that was representing a haven of some type of form.
But what of one single home worth $750,000 being totalled out and then three miles away a lightning strike destroys 3 homes and knocks out power to thousands. Even with latitude being provided for fate to render us still vulnerable to the physical damages caused by a storm, it is within these cascade of events and their effects and influences on how we are perceiving our environment around us at any given moment.
So if it can be argued that the placement of lightning rod systems can be sketched, reviewed, tested, analysed and codified for Wikipedia, certainly this same possibility has been available at least in terms of having the capability to develop a section in the Building Code Collection as an entirety and also within specific popular books being adopted by municipalities.
Whether someone knows for fact whether or not a lightning protection system is built into a structure is not common knowledge. It is an element of faith that is parallel to faith placed in all of the gadgets in a vehicle. One does not study the entire manual so they can decide if they want to take a risk with advanced technology - they rely on visual examples, perhaps comments from others about its quality and consistency and very generic terminology to arrive at a conclusion over whether or not they want to acquire the technology. Although a position of taking something for granted is sometimes twisted into a position of negligence, to have faith there is some form of lightning protection installed within the architecture is not a sign of unreasonable application of consumer faith in a product, i.e. the building. After all, if there was no faith in a building structure during a thunder storm, the streets would be filled with people in a panic over where they can head for cover from far more than just lightning strikes hitting their person.
To state as unwavering fact that the "experts" who compile the book do not believe it an important topic to demand of those seeking to claim expertise in constructing buildings worthy of placement upon the grounds of any community is impossible, but what are all of the victim's of such types of devastation supposed to think...let alone the general public.
Events themselves may not be avoidable, but the environment can be adjusted with intent on diverting something that has occurred in the past. Although we may not need to adjust rabbit ear antennas in order to tune into our favorite television shows or radio programs, perhaps we need to re-adjust engineering priorities enough to include a chapter or two about how architectural design can influence the attraction factor in relation to lightning and what types of adjustments will elevate the potential for a re-direct of what would have otherwise been a direct hit on someone's home or place of work or place of worship...
The is no plausible deniability for the absence of codes in this category of property/casualty damage. It ain't there. I don't know if it was once there and taken away or if it has simply been missing since round one of the book but there are no direct references to lightning tolerances. There's a bunch of stuff on fires, but no lightning.
But whether or not assigning blame to The Economy or National Security for the issue of lightning still not making it to the big-leagues is of Greater Good value or just a matter of (in)convenience needing to be brushed away, in order to construct something from destruction, one must understand how the destruction came about. And if there is a continuation of a puff and fluff attitude towards those who have had to endure the effects of a natural disaster, why should anyone delete awareness of those cigarette-sized objects I mentioned earlier...
You know. The ones designed to make the clouds cry.
The ones that carry evaporated water from somewhere.
Legends of rainmakers abound in history-bound books, the idea that one is able to fire a series of bullets into the clouds so that the water falls to the ground sounds like a great theme for a video game, but certainly its not a reality worthy of contemplation and consideration when conversing about just what is causing what to who...and why. Faith is just not enough of a firewall anymore when it comes to this kind of simple stuff being expected to be representative of "Taking one for Team USA" especially since we're not the only ones who have dabbled in the stuff.
I have no idea if lightning is even produced during these events, but I don't need an artist to provide me with any imagery associated with the possibility...
So why aren't lighning rod systems mandatory again when they can help reduce overall health care costs under some column heading...along with property/casualty pay-outs?
Might be a good attempt at reducing of Overall Fear Tally At Any Given Moment
