I can certainly appreciate a good lightning story since I have been in electrical servicing and security systems installation and servicing most of my adult life (where I worked a productive "real job")

I've seen lightning do some really bizarre things in all the years I have worked in these fields.... I have a number of lightning stories but will spare you my ramblings. OK... just one that was funny at the time... to me anyhow....
A customer's phone line got hit. The surge protector on the phone line shorted out but the alarm dialer was OK. The device did it's job. The phone guy comes down and we had determined there was a break in the line due to the lightning. So he used a "thumper"... it sends a high voltage spike repeatedly through the wire to find the break, with a receiver. He's walking through the weeds along the driveway pushing the reciever probes in the ground, when he starts "dancing and yelling"..... turned out that the break was located near a fire ant nest in the ground and as he was slowly closing in on the break the ants were pouring out of the ground since they really did not appreciate the electrical jolts through their nest. They found his legs, and attacked.

Yes, no matter how good a surge protection device is, a spark that will jump from a cloud 3000' up to the ground is not going to be stopped by a tiny MOV in a direct primary strike.

Regardless, I still have plenty of surge protection from the service mains coming in to the UPS/surge on the outlet where the gear is plugged in. Phone lines are an often overlooked source of surges. I have addition surge on my phone and internet lines as well.....

so far, so good, as I've only had minor damage to an old dial-up modem on a phone line to this point. A 10ohm resistor got fried in the line in.

I shut down the studio gear when I hear thunder and will only work on a laptop running on battery if I really need to keep working.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.