Annually, lightning strikes cause damage to facilities, disruption of work, injuries, and deaths in some cases. Although we in the United States have made progress in our protecting of structures, there is still room to improve in properly protecting people.
Keep in mind that lightning protection for facilities protects the structure and the electrical systems in the facility, it does not protect people or operations outside of the structure. The purpose of a UL listed lightning protection system is to accept the lightning strike and direct it to earth, causing the least amount of harm possible. This is actually the technique invented by Benjamin Franklin many years ago! The lightning rods (air terminals) you see on the roofs of buildings are there as strike termination devices to accept the strike, which then allows the energy from the lightning to follow a conductor (special wires from the lightning rods) safely to dissipate into the earth. This system works well and as more structures are protected in this way, less damage is being done