Date: October 6, 2017

To: The United Nations

From: Samuel Reddick
Subject: Lightning Safe Infrastructure
Distribution List: World Health Organization (WHO), Lightning Protection Institute (LPI),
International Public Safety Association (IPSA)

Introduction
As the most recognized authority in global affairs, it is the responsibility of the United Nations to
help ensure the survival of the worlds precarious populations. One major threat to these
populations today is the hazard of natural disasters. There are people in the more impoverished
areas who lack the most basic protection from lethal storms. They stand to benefit from a multi-
national initiative to provide them with some protections; an initiative that the UN is best-suited
to organize.

Summary
Among other inevitable results of climate change the frequency and ferocity of many natural
disasters is bound to increase. It is time to improve the infrastructure that prevents the resulting
damage to the best of our abilities. Lightning is one natural force with known causes and
countermeasures that we can protect people from worldwide. .. Unfortunately, this knowledge
alone is not enough to keep thunderstorms from killing or wounding thousands of people every
year. In a world where the fatality of large typhoons, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and other
natural disasters seems almost guaranteed, one should ask why we allow the one natural force
that we have effective countermeasures for to go unchecked (Phippen). The problem is that
people are unwilling to provide this protection universally. Lightning-proof infrastructure would
be an expensive burden for wealthier nations to bear. What is requested of the UN today is that
they put in place the framework for programs that will encourage nations with a high GDP per
capita and sustain very few lightning deaths, such as the US and UK, to help provide protection
for poorer nations, such as those in the Congo Basin, that are susceptible to high lightning
fatalities due to their location and lack of infrastructure.

Lightning
General Information
Lightning refers to the massive electrical discharge of clouds during a thunderstorm. The
discharge is large-scale static electricity that is caused by an imbalance of electrons in one layer
of clouds that becomes negatively charged. This negative cloud is sandwiched between the
ground and an upper layer of clouds, one or both of which may be positively charged (Elsom).
Over time, the disparity between this imbalance of charge increases, and once it reaches a certain
magnitude, the electrical discharge in the form of several lightning bolts becomes inevitable
(Elsom). These bolts are initiated by a mechanism called a stepped leader, where ionized
particles step their way from the negatively charged cloud to an area with positive charge. Once
these steps reach a positive charge, the ionized particles serve as a channel between the
negatively charged cloud and its positively charged target. A return strokethis is what appears
to us as the lightning bolt itselfis fired back to the negatively charged source. After several of
these bolts have passed between the two charged areas, the charge between them becomes more
neutralized. This is the purpose that a thunderstorm serves the Earths atmosphere, to neutralize
its electrical charges wherever they appear.

As one might imagine, the static discharge of Earths atmosphere is fairly large and results in at
least 300,000 volts of electricity (which is the measure of electrical flow) and a peak current
anywhere from 5 to 200 thousand amperes (which measures the voltage divided by resistance).
The air particles that interact with the charge directly are rapidly compressed by the immense
heat of the lightning bolt. This reaction is what causes the audible rolling roar of the storm that
we refer to as thunder. The actual lightning bolt heats the surrounding air to temperatures around
54,000 degrees Fahrenheit or around 30,000 degrees Celsius (Elsom). Thats about five times the
temperature of the Suns outer layer, the photosphere (Sharp).

With numbers as substantial as these, it is clear why lightning is such a destructive force, and
because of some of the properties of electricity, the area of effect for lightning bolts is both very
unpredictable and very dangerous to people and livestock on the ground. Lightning, like all
electricity, tends to follow the route with the least resistance, which leads to some counter-
intuitive behavior.
Bolts on occasion may strike the roof of a building, then jump off from the roof to the
nearest person on or around the original strike point.
Lightning that strikes the ground can still send the current through the legs of people or
animals on the ground as the energy dissipates.
Bolts can travel up to 10 miles (16 km) away from the parent cloud to strike the ground
or an object beyond the horizon.
This erratic behavior means that aside from being inside a building with proper lightning
infrastructure, surviving through a thunderstorm is far from guaranteed (Elsom). In 2008,
medical researchers named lightning, the second leading cause of weather-related death in
much of the world (Ritenour).
Death Prevention Techniques
As mentioned in the last section, being Image Credit: atmo.arizona.edu. As this picture illustrates, people in
caught in a thunderstorm without proper well-constructed buildings have little to fear from lightning. This is
the main reason why urban populations are safer than rural ones.
surrounding infrastructure is a precarious
situation to be in. Lightning is very powerful
and very unpredictable. Thats why the best
way to ensure the survival of people and
livestock during a storm is to put them inside
structures that are well designed to ground the
massive amount of energy that is transferred
from the cloud. While this might sound
complicated and expensive, deflecting
lighting around a structure is fairly simple.
The only basic requirement is that the
protective structure conducts electricity
directly to the ground without a chance to
jump off to the individuals inside, or to flow
around windows where individuals might be
watching (Elsom). Lightning strikes are
powerful, but they last for such a small
amount of time that it is possible to survive a
direct lightning strike.

Of course, survival for an individual who has

been struck by lightning isnt certain, and the strike itself can lead to serious, permanent,
physical damage. Preventing this isnt difficult. Structures as small as cars act as decent
protection from lightning strikes since the metal outside offers the electricity an external path of
least resistance. While this does sometimes lead to electrical malfunctions within the car, the
fatal potential of the lightning bolt itself is immensely mitigated (Yanagawa). In rural locations
with few cars, small sheds built to withstand and ground lightning strikes could act similarly to
protect families who may not have time to make it to larger buildings with lightning
infrastructure. Fatality records from the United States over the past one-hundred years illustrate
the critical role of the city in protecting people from lightning storms (Holle). Bearing this in
mind, the initiative to protect vulnerable people from thunderstorms should focus on populations
that live outside of the protection of cities.

Lightning Fatalities
At the beginning of the twentieth-century, the United States suffered a large number of lightning-
related fatalities (Elsom). This could be attributed to the location of certain states, like Florida for
example, that are situated perfectly to experience a maximum of lightning damage (Florida is
both exceptionally flat and mostly surrounded by warm water, conditions very hospitable to
forming dangerous thunderstorms) (Elsom). Towards the end of the twentieth-century though,
the number of deaths fell dramatically. This enormous improvement over the course of one-
hundred years has a lot to do with the urbanization of the nation (Elsom).
The reason why urbanization had such a marked effect on the fatality rates of US citizens over
the course of the twentieth-century is because of the fact the large, well-built buildings and
houses of the city offered better protection that the small, isolated farm houses that citizens left
over time. This reason is compounded by the fact that lightning education also increased
overtime, and educated citizens were more likely to seek shelter. If one were to compare these
number to that of other developed countries like the United Kingdom, then the trend seems to be
about the same (Elsom). People at the beginning of the twentieth-century were far more
susceptible to death by lightning strike.

Image Credit: geology.com. This map shows in red and black, the areas most affected by lightning strikes. It is clear
why people living in the rural areas of central Africa are especially at risk from thunderstorms.

Unfortunately, the comparison of lightning safety doesnt just show a stark contrast between the
beginning and end of the twentieth-century, it also shows the divide between developed and
underdeveloped countries in modern times. People from underdeveloped countries are much
more likely to be killed by a thunderstorm (Phippen). Based on the earlier hypothesis that deaths
in developed countries went down because of urbanization, and by extension, better lightning-
preventive infrastructure. To see this improvement for the rest of the world, investors would have
to build up areas that dont have access to these structures, and distribute appropriate education
to ensure that people know what is needed to safeguard themselves and their families during a
storm.
Conclusion
While we as humans have a tendency to believe that we are the masters of the universe, the fury
of nature is all that is required to humble us. Natural disasters can be unpredictable, and scientific
and engineering disciplines have yet to find methods to completely protect people from the
power of some of these forces. Lightning however, is not one of these. The infrastructure to
protect the bulk of humanity from the dangers of lightning has existed for some time. In this
situation, there is no reason why some people should be left to be die simply because their
country isnt as wealthy as another.

Recommendation
As the unified governing body of all recognized nations, the UN has the responsibility to
encourage developed nations to safeguard the lives of the poor as they would the lives of their
own citizens. In order to accomplish this, I suggest that the assembly create the programs that
would allow for the proper funding and resources required to protect people in the
underdeveloped world from the dangers of thunderstorms.
Works Cited:
Elsom, Derek M. Lightning: Nature and Culture. Reaktion Books, 2015.

Holle, Ronald L., et al. Deaths, Injuries, and Damages from Lightning in the United States in
the 1890s in Comparison with the 1990s. Journal of Applied Meteorology, vol. 44, no. 10,
2005, pp. 15631573., doi:10.1175/jam2287.1.

Phippen, J. Weston. Why Lightning Disproportionately Kills the Poor. The Atlantic, Atlantic
Media Company, 23 June 2016, www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/06/lightning-deaths-
india/488261/.

Ritenour, Amber E, et al. Lightning injury: A review. Burns, vol. 34, no. 5, 2008, pp. 585
594., doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2007.11.006.

Tim Sharp. How Hot Is the Sun? Space.com, www.space.com/17137-how-hot-is-the-sun.html.

Yanagawa, Shunichi, et al. Investigations of lightning accidents on automobiles. Electric

Power Systems Research, vol. 139, 2016, pp. 29., doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2015.11.023.

Image Sources:

Lightning Striking Freedom Tower NYC .Tue., Nov. 22 notes,

www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall16/atmo170a1s3/lecture_notes/nov22.html.

"World Lightning Map." Geology. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2017.