We had an experience and I wouldn't completely trust surge protectors either. We had an electronic invisible dog fence which we no longer used (we had a cyclone fence put in) but we failed to disconnect. Our neighbors had lightning strike a huge 70 year old pine tree and travel down through the roots to the dog fence wire and into our garage where it blew the plastic cover on the controller 10 feet away and also went into the electrical system of our house. It damaged 2 computers with surge protectors plus several other things, including the sprinkler system. Scary!