We don't get a lot of that in LA, but mom in upstate NY is on her third surge protector.
Modern switching power supplies are remarkably able to ride out large surges (or dips) in the power, but yes, totally disconnect them from the wall.
A secondary object is to keep the machines from being between two wiring systems, too, so drop the network connections as well.
There is no shortage of stories about lightning, but there are one or two firm rules.
Obviously, don't be the tallest person on the golf course when a storm goes through.
Protection from a tall metal object is not universal. The umbrella of protection goes out from the top of the object and dips at a 45 degree angle and dies 100 feet away. We had two satellite dish systems in Washington DC, one was inside the protection of the 680 foot television tower and one wasn't. The one outside would routinely get killed.
The leading edge of a lightning strike is microwave and follows microwave rules. Microwaves do not go around sharp corners, so a lightning protection or grounding cable with a lot of kinks in it is useless.
Microwaves will not go through galvanized pipe and lightning won't either. There are wiring installations where everything goes through ten foot lengths of galvanized pipe. They've had occasional sparklies in a bad storm, but no explosions.
I went through a course about this.
I'm not a cellphone kind of guy, they they are way safer in an electric storm than a wired phone.
Oh, one more. The totally safest place in an electric storm is reading a book in your car. Metal car bodies form a Faraday Shield and lightning goes right around. You may not be able to hear or see very well after a good strike, but you will survive.
That and you'll probably spill your coffee on the ceiling.
Koz
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