The Power Is Back. Your Internet, TV, or Cameras Might Not Be.
The storm rolled through overnight. By morning the lights are on, the fridge is humming, and the coffee maker works. Then something else doesn't. The internet is down. The TV in the living room stays black. The sound in the media room won't come on. Or you open the camera app and every camera says offline. Sometimes it's the newest piece in the rack. Sometimes it's one older box that has been fine for years, while everything around it still works. Lightning didn't even have to hit the house.
How a Surge Gets In
A surge doesn't need a direct hit. When lightning strikes nearby, a tree, a utility pole, or wet ground down the street, that energy can ride in on the wires already connected to the house. Power lines are the obvious path. So are the cables people forget about: the internet line, a cable run to a TV, and the network cables that go outside to cameras.
A lot of home cameras use Power over Ethernet (PoE). One cable carries both power and video back to a switch, and that switch often feeds a Network Video Recorder (NVR). If a surge comes in on an outdoor camera cable, it can take out the switch and the recorder together. The same night, a different path can knock out the modem, a receiver, or a streaming box that was only plugged into the wall.
Older equipment is an easy target. It may have little real protection, and it may sit on the same circuit as newer gear that happens to survive. That's why the damage can look random. One room is fine. The next room lost the TV, the network, or a single component that won't power back on.
If the power came back but your internet, television, sound, or cameras didn't, the best thing to do is have it tested before anything gets moved or replaced. Dynamiq A/V offers a post-storm assessment with on-site testing and an insurance estimate on our letterhead. Request a visit on our After the Storm page or call or text us at (832) 215-9350.
