McCombs
Northwest Florida gets hit hard by lightning. Florida leads the nation in lightning strike frequency, and the Pensacola and Milton area sees its share of direct strikes and indirect surge events every storm season. When lightning damages your home's electrical system, Josh Rogers, PE, licensed Professional Engineer and president of McCombs Electrical Heating & Air, wants homeowners to understand one critical fact: not all lightning damage looks the same, and what you can see is often only part of what actually happened.
McCombs Electrical has been responding to lightning damage calls across Milton, Pace, Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, and Cantonment since 1974. Here is what Josh's team finds, and what they do about it.
Two Types of Lightning Strikes, and Why the Difference Matters
Not every lightning strike is the same, and the type of strike determines what kind of damage to look for. Josh Rogers explains the distinction his team sees in the field.
Direct Strikes
A direct strike is exactly what it sounds like: lightning hits the home itself. These are less common than indirect strikes, but the damage is immediate and often dramatic. A direct strike can start a fire on contact, blow switches, receptacles, and light fixtures off walls and ceilings, and damage wiring inside walls and ceilings along with the electrical panel and every device plugged in at the time. Surge arresters provide little defense against a direct strike of this magnitude. If your home has taken a direct hit, the priority is safety first, and a full electrical inspection before power is restored to any affected circuit.
Indirect Strikes: Far More Common, Far More Misunderstood
An indirect strike is when lightning hits near a home, not the home itself, and the resulting rise in ground voltage travels into the structure through any available path. That path can be the power lines, low-voltage wiring, water pipes, landscape lighting, a well system, a sprinkler system, or communication cables coming into the house.
The damage from an indirect strike appears random because it is. The surge follows whatever path of least resistance it finds on its way through the home. McCombs receives calls about indirect strikes regularly after every significant thunderstorm moves through the area. Homeowners are often confused because they never heard a direct strike, but devices and appliances stopped working the next morning.
What commonly fails after an indirect strike:
- Garage door openers
- LED lamps and light fixtures
- Refrigerators, freezers, ovens, microwaves, and coffee makers with electronic control boards
- Televisions and streaming devices
- Internet routers and modems
- Alarm and security systems
- GFCI receptacles, where a tripped or failed GFCI that will not reset after a storm is one of the most recognizable signs of indirect strike damage
If your GFCI outlet will not reset after a storm, that is a sign of indirect lightning damage. Do not force it. Call McCombs Electrical to inspect the circuit.
What McCombs Inspects After a Lightning Strike
The inspection McCombs performs after a lightning strike is driven by what the homeowner reports as damaged or not working. Josh's team does not assume a standard checklist applies to every job, because no two strikes travel the same path through a home.
On a typical post-strike call, the McCombs technician will:
- Inspect failed devices and appliances on the affected circuits
- Check receptacles and switches on those circuits for damage or failure
- Inspect the electrical panel for tripped breakers, arc damage, or signs of overheating
- Do a visual inspection of accessible wiring for burn marks, melted insulation, or physical damage
For a direct strike where wiring integrity is in question, insulation resistance testing is available. This goes deeper than a visual inspection and can identify hidden damage inside walls. Josh's team recommends this level of testing after any confirmed direct strike.
Most post-strike repairs on indirect strike calls involve replacing damaged devices, failed GFCIs, and burned receptacles or switches on the affected circuits. Direct strikes often require more extensive work, including panel repair or replacement and circuit-by-circuit evaluation.
Lightning Damage and Your Homeowner's Insurance
Most standard homeowner's insurance policies cover lightning strike damage, including both structural damage and damage to appliances and electronics. But the insurance company will need documentation.
A written assessment from a licensed electrical contractor identifying which circuits and devices were affected, what the likely cause was, and what repairs were made gives you the documentation your carrier needs to process the claim. Because McCombs is engineer-led, that documentation carries the weight of a Professional Engineer's oversight, which matters when a carrier is evaluating a larger claim.
If you are filing a claim after a lightning event, call McCombs first. The inspection report becomes part of your claim file.
Whole-House Surge Protection: Defending Against the Next Storm
After an indirect strike call, the question McCombs hears most often is: how do we keep this from happening again?
A whole-house surge arrester installed at the electrical panel is the most effective protection available against indirect strikes that travel in on the power lines. It requires two open spaces in the panel and is ideally installed at the exterior service entry. Josh's team recommends it after every indirect strike call, and it is standard practice to install surge protection whenever a service panel is replaced.
It is important to understand what whole-house surge protection does and does not do. A surge arrester guards effectively against the indirect strike, which is the most common scenario. Against a direct strike of full magnitude, no surge protection device on the market provides complete protection. The combination of a properly grounded system and whole-house surge protection gives your home meaningful defense for the vast majority of lightning events Northwest Florida produces.
Whole-house surge protection is a straightforward installation for a licensed electrician and a fraction of the cost of replacing the appliances and electronics a single indirect strike can destroy.
Engineer-Led Electrical Inspection After a Lightning Strike
Most electrical contractors send a technician and respond to what they can see. McCombs Electrical Heating & Air is led by Josh Rogers, PE, a licensed Professional Engineer. When lightning damage is involved, that distinction matters.
Hidden wiring damage, arc damage inside a panel, and compromised insulation on conductors are exactly the kind of failures that do not show up on a surface inspection but can cause a fire weeks or months after a strike. The McCombs team is trained to look for these, and Josh's engineering background means the assessment is thorough, documented, and backed by professional accountability.
For homeowners dealing with an insurance claim, a PE-led inspection report carries more weight than a standard service call ticket. That is another reason the call to McCombs is the right first move after any lightning event.
Why Lightning Damage Is a Year-Round Reality in Northwest Florida
Florida leads the nation in lightning strike density. The combination of Gulf Coast and inland heat, daily sea breeze collisions, and a long storm season means Northwest Florida homeowners deal with lightning threats from spring through fall, with summer thunderstorms capable of producing strikes with little warning. The area around Pensacola, Milton, and the Santa Rosa Sound corridor is particularly active during peak storm months.
Most homeowners who call McCombs after a lightning event have experienced an indirect strike from a storm that passed through the neighborhood. They did not hear a direct hit. They simply woke up the next morning and the garage door would not open, the refrigerator display was blank, and the GFCI in the bathroom would not reset. That is a textbook indirect strike, and it is exactly what McCombs responds to on a regular basis throughout the service area.
The homes most vulnerable to indirect strike damage are those without whole-house surge protection and those with older electrical panels that have no surge arresting capacity. A post-strike inspection is the right time to evaluate both.
What Our Customers Say
McCombs has built its reputation across Santa Rosa and Escambia counties one job at a time since 1974. We work to earn it on every call, including the ones that come in the morning after a storm.
Electrical Services McCombs Provides After a Lightning Strike
When you call McCombs after a lightning event, the team is equipped to handle the full range of repairs the inspection reveals, including:
- Post-strike electrical inspection and damage assessment
- GFCI receptacle replacement
- Switch, outlet, and fixture replacement
- Circuit breaker inspection and replacement
- Electrical panel inspection, repair, and replacement
- Insulation resistance testing for direct strike events
- Whole-house surge arrester installation
- Insurance documentation and inspection reports
Northwest Florida Service Area
McCombs Electrical Heating & Air responds to lightning damage calls throughout Santa Rosa and Escambia counties, including:
- Milton and all surrounding communities
- Pace
- Pensacola
- Gulf Breeze
- Cantonment
- Navarre
- Bagdad, East Milton, Avalon, and the greater Santa Rosa County area
Lightning Strike Electrical Damage FAQs for Northwest Florida
A direct strike hits the structure itself and typically causes immediate, dramatic damage including fires, blown fixtures, and destroyed wiring. An indirect strike hits near the home and travels in through power lines, pipes, or other connected systems. Indirect strikes are far more common and produce random-seeming damage to electronics, appliances, and GFCI receptacles throughout the home.
Very likely yes. GFCI receptacles are particularly vulnerable to the voltage surge from an indirect lightning strike. If a GFCI will not reset after a storm and was working before it, indirect strike damage is the probable cause. A McCombs electrician can inspect the receptacle and the circuit to confirm the cause and make the replacement.
Most standard homeowner's policies do cover lightning strike damage to appliances and electronics, but coverage details vary by carrier and policy. You will need documentation of the damage from a licensed electrician to support your claim. McCombs provides a written inspection report as part of the repair process.
Yes. An indirect strike can damage wiring, receptacles, and panel components without interrupting power. Hidden damage that is not causing an immediate problem can cause a fire weeks or months later. A post-strike inspection is a reasonable step after any significant lightning event near your home, even if everything appears to be working.
A whole-house surge arrester installed at the electrical panel guards against indirect lightning strikes that travel in on the power lines, which is the most common type of residential lightning damage. It does not provide full protection against a direct strike of full magnitude. Combined with a properly grounded system, it provides meaningful defense against the vast majority of storm events Northwest Florida produces.
As soon as you have identified damage or suspect that devices failed during a storm. Do not continue to use circuits or devices that may have been affected before they are inspected. If you smell burning, see scorch marks, or have a breaker that will not reset, treat it as an immediate call.
Lightning Damage in Milton, Pace, Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, or Cantonment?
If lightning has hit near your home or you suspect indirect strike damage after a storm, McCombs Electrical Heating & Air is ready to help. Josh Rogers and his team will inspect the system, identify what the strike affected, make the repairs, and provide the documentation your insurance carrier needs.
Call McCombs Electrical Heating & Air
Serving Santa Rosa and Escambia counties since 1974.