The charged cloud and charged ground patch may move to a distant area and then be affecting important kit there, such as at the far end of you line, if you have along line, that is. There could be current flow down you line too, duebto the potential difference between the the places where the two ends of the line are, if long line, and this Ground Potential Rise or Earth Potential Rise GPR/EPR could be insidiously harmful, slow cooking. I have heard of kit been heated by this in the USA. I don't know about it here, most lines too short and it often would not be recognised anyway. The ubiquitous popularity of wireless lans has protecteca generation of computers so we do not hear much about lightning damage any more, compared to what it would be like otherwise, with burned out ethernet NICs or worse.