When I was working, my computer was plugged into a heavy duty serge protector, but one day during a thunderstorm I actually watched my computer screen turn into a bright orange pumpkin - toatlly fried - right in front of me. We found out that surge protectors aren't all that protective.
Ever since that day at home I Always unplug the serge protectors from the wall outlet for all of my machines, and tv's during a bad storm. Instead of unplugging each machine I only have to unplug the one unit which usually has 2 machines on it.
Also learned this the hard way - our Dish dvd is hooked up to the phone outlet for any downloads (cheaper than having downloads for regular maintenance, than directly thru dvd). But last summer when lightening hit the phone transformer, for miles around, it also fried the dvd update system. Didn't know till we got a bill that dvd was doing regular mantenace thru dvd.
Needless to say, during bad storms I unplug the phone line to dvd.
Can you guess, I live in Georgia.
karen