If you’ve been in Arizona through a summer monsoon, you know the drill: clear skies in the afternoon, a wall of dust rolling in by evening, and then a lightning show that knocks the power out across half the Valley. For churches, monsoon season isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s one of the most dangerous times of year for expensive AV equipment.
We get calls every July and August from churches across Tempe, Chandler, and Mesa whose mixing consoles, projectors, or video switchers got fried by a power surge during a storm. Almost all of it was preventable.
Why Monsoon Storms Are So Hard on AV Gear
Arizona’s monsoon storms produce some of the most volatile electrical activity in the country — rapid voltage swings, brownouts, and direct lightning strikes that send surges through both utility power lines and, in some cases, network and audio cabling that runs near exterior walls or rooftop equipment.
Modern AV gear is full of sensitive digital components — DSP boards in mixing consoles, processors in projectors and LED walls, network switches for streaming — that are far more vulnerable to power fluctuations than the analog gear of a decade ago. A surge that simply flickers your sanctuary lights can be enough to silently degrade or outright destroy a digital console’s internal components.
The Most Common Damage We See
Fried power supplies in mixers, amplifiers, and video processors after a surge that wasn’t fully absorbed by a basic power strip.
Network equipment failures — switches and routers tied to streaming and lighting control systems are especially vulnerable since they’re often left powered on 24/7.
Projector and display damage, particularly in rooms where equipment is connected directly to wall outlets without dedicated surge protection.
Data loss on show files, lighting cues, and ProPresenter playlists stored on equipment that loses power abruptly mid-save.
What Actually Protects Your System
Whole-system surge protection, not just power strips. A consumer-grade surge protector from a hardware store is rated for a fraction of the surge energy a direct or near-direct lightning strike can produce. Rack-mounted, properly rated surge suppressors — sized to your system’s actual power draw — are a different category of protection entirely.
UPS (uninterruptible power supply) units on critical gear. Beyond surge protection, a UPS keeps your console, network gear, and streaming encoder running through brief outages and gives you clean shutdown time during longer ones — protecting against the kind of abrupt power loss that corrupts settings and show files.
Proper grounding. A surprising number of older Arizona church buildings have grounding that hasn’t been updated since original construction. Good surge protection is only as effective as the electrical ground it’s tied to.
Network and signal-line protection. Surges don’t only travel through power outlets — they can ride in on network cabling and even some audio/video signal lines connected to outdoor cameras or rooftop antenna equipment. Protecting those pathways matters too, not just the wall outlets.
A simple severe-weather shutdown procedure. For storms with a confirmed lightning threat, having a documented “power down and unplug critical gear” procedure for your tech team can prevent damage that even good surge protection can’t fully guarantee against during a direct strike.
Don’t Wait for the First Storm to Find the Gap
Monsoon season in the Phoenix Valley typically runs from mid-June through September, which means right now is exactly the window where unprotected equipment is most exposed. We’ve walked into more than a few churches doing emergency repairs after a storm, only to find a single $150 surge strip was protecting a $40,000 AV system.
A proper power protection assessment is one of the lowest-cost, highest-value things we do for churches — often paying for itself the very first time it absorbs a surge that would have taken out a console or projector.
If your church hasn’t had its power protection reviewed recently, now is the time. Contact Brilliance AV and we’ll take a look at what’s protecting your system — and what isn’t — before the next storm rolls through.
