By , Editorial Director | Midland Telegram Reporter |A thunderstorm in West Texas can certainly be an amazing sight to see, but the lightning produced can be damaging — and deadly.
The National Weather Service says the U.S. sees about 25 million lightning strikes annually. From the derrick of a drilling rig to the rim of a storage tank, lots of oilfield equipment is susceptible, but a humble item dating back to the 1700s is still in use today to provide protection.
Benjamin Franklin began thinking about protecting people and property from lightning in the 1750s, according to the Franklin Institute. He described an 8 to 10-foot-long iron rod with a sharp point on top where “the electrical fire would, I think, be drawn out of a cloud silently before it could come near enough to strike.”
Add in the lore of Franklin’s famous experiment with a metal key tied to a kite one stormy night in Philadelphia, and the push to attract lightning along a safer pathway via metal rod took hold.
About 200 years after Franklin conceived his first ideas about lightning rods, the Hamilton family in Houston entered the business.
“My grandfather was a journeyman electrician who had done some lightning protection work on a commercial building,” said Marty Hamilton of Hamilton Lightning Rods. “Not many people installed lightning rods back then, so he decided to take it full time.”
While Hamilton Lightning Rods has protected buildings and equipment since 1959, serving the oil and gas industry in West Texas is relatively recent.
“We started working with oil and gas companies about 15 years ago,” Hamilton said. “We didn’t advertise for that; most companies in this industry serve residential and commercial. What got us into the oil and gas industry was that those companies started calling us.”
Oil tanks are particularly popular for being equipped with lightning rods.
“On a 40-foot-wide tank, the rods go around the edges and are fastened right to the tank,” Hamilton said. “They’re spaced 20 feet apart and are connected with a cable, then to a 10-foot grounding rod in the earth.”
The grounding rod is particularly important. “Lightning will keep going until it finds a ground,” he said.”
Hamilton said oil tanks aren’t that complicated, but drilling rigs can be challenging.
“We have to put a heavy ground rod in two different places in the event a rig gets hit,” he said. “Rigs have a lot of heavy-duty steel on them, and lightning only needs 3/16ths of an inch of steel or greater to carry the current.”
Hamilton Lightning Rods typically fasten a lightning rod with copper clamps, and a heavy cable connects to the 10-foot grounding rod.
Franklin envisioned lightning rods of about 10 feet in length. They’re not as long as they used to be.
“The old ones were made of copper and 5 to 6 feet tall,” Hamilton said. “Old barns had them, and they usually only had one place going to the ground via a steel pipe cable, and the grounding depth was pretty shallow. Now they’re about 1 foot tall and made of aluminum and copper. We also use braided cabling now and have much deeper grounding. It’s been pretty much the same since the 1940s and ’50s.”
After a trip to the oilfield, Hamilton saw firsthand what lightning is like in West Texas.
“I remember we were leaving a site, and it started to rain harder than I think I’ve ever seen anywhere,” he said. “A couple thousand yards off the road, there was a huge lightning strike. And then I saw a fire.”
“I got into the family business because I’ve always enjoyed working outside, talking with people and having the knowledge that what we do can save a property and lives,” Hamilton said. “Knowing that there aren’t many companies in Texas who provide lightning protection services for the oil and gas industry and after seeing that massive strike myself, I’m glad my company can help keep the oilfield safe.”
