The Press., 1922-11-16
SAFETY IN STORM
"SkysCraper" Good Place to Be
 When Lightning Flashes.
Steel Frame Conducts Electric Fluid HarmIessly to Earth-Some Places
 That Are Especially Dangerous.

Here's good news for skyscraper folk. The safest place in a thunder storm is a steel frame building. That Is, it's the safest place accessible to most of us. There might be slight margin in favor of an underground cave or a compartment completely en- veloped in metal network. But a mod ern office building, hotel or department store comes pretty near making its occupants lightning proof.
 Not that lightning never strikes such a building. Indeed, it often shatters some wooden excrescence on it, like q hagpOle, and there have been thunder storms in New York which have lit tered downtown streets with such wreckage.
 But the modern buildings themselves are such good conductors that when they are struck the people inside them never know 1t. Through their steel skeletons the electric fluid speeds harmlessly on it's shortest possible path to the earth.
 More, the skyscraper actually plays benefcent part in a thunderstorm, says pr. Charles P. Steinmetz, chief consulting engineer of the General Electric company, since they tend to relieve by silent discharges" the ten sion existing at such times between earth and sky.
 If you are lightning shy, Dr. Stein metz conclusions will encourage you. At the same time he utters few words of warning. While the sporting odds, based on lightning fatality sta tistics, are about .24OOOO to 1 against any particular person being killed by lightning, it's just as well to notice where you're standing while a thun- derstorm is raging.
 It might not be healthy, for instance, to take up your station in direct line between two good-siZed metal objects, such as a steam radiator and an iron sink, or between either of them and rain spout running up the side of the house. That would be a reckless invi- tatiOn to some flash of lightning. either direct or indirect, to do its worst to you. For lightning prefers metal con ductors on it's journey to the ground and would rather leap from one me tallic body to another than take direct course through noncOnducting mediums.
 "A place of special danger" says Steinmetz, lis directly beneath a hang ing lamp or globe suspended from the ceiling by chain. Lightning may fol- low the chain to its end and then jump off. The place where a wire clOthesline enters house may also be danger spot, although l think this has been overemphasized.
 Golf fans will be cheered to learn that the metal pieces on their clubs are too insignificant to attract the majestic attentions of lightning stroke. Golf CTS caught in a thunderstorm have been known to fall in a panic and throw away their clubs, but their fears are pronounced grOundless.
 The behavior of lightning under va riOuS conditions has been studied sym pathetically by Steinmetz, who was dubbed lightning tanner" when he sue ceeded in producing artificial lightning in his laboratory.
 eff you glory in thunderstorm as I do, you will want to stand at a window or on the front porch and watch it. he said. And there you will be just about as safe as anywhere else. For of all the lightning flashes generated by vivid summer storm, less than per cent strike the earth. The rest are confined to the sky that breeds them. Your chances of being bitten by mad dog are probably greater than the chance that you will be struck dead by lightning. Only about 800 persons are killed by lightning in this country every year."
 AS for the human rabbits who seek Insulation" in a thunderstorm by rolling themselves in feather beds, the lightning tanner has nothing but mild ridicule for them.