[geeks] Lightning question

[Lionel Peterson]

Quick question: We recently had a serious lightning storm not just near by, but actually in our backyard! A tree on our property was struck, and now is spread out across the backyard (oddly, the bark was "blown off", and a chunk of the tree about 5-6' tall was knocked out, and shot across the yard about 10 yards.

Anyway, when I got in my car the day after the storm (I keep my car on the driveway about 100-150 feet from the tree that was struck) my clock was set to 00:00. I guess there was a massive electromagnetic field that included the car when the tree was struck. The clock is fine in the car, but here is my question:

Would it make sense that my 100-150 foot Cat5E cable run from my den to my basement switch would "kill" a switch port?

I have a long cable run between two 24 port switches, and on the switch in the basement the port the cable run ran into is "dead". When I switched the cable to another port on the switch connectivity was re-established, but in the original port, there was no connectivity between the switches.

Any thoughts? I'm afraid that I'm trying to be too clever - the port could have just died on the switch, but I tend to think that the lightning had SOME impact.

Thanks in advance,

Lionel