Well, it's a cheap system.. I lost only $175 or so in equipment. I could do with another phone line surge suppressor. My current one blew a fuse a while ago, which didn't get replaced yet. That might have saved it, if it came in the modem.

However, last time I had lightning damage this setup, it seemed to come in via the wifi antenna (which is inside the house!) .. only the wifi adapter was destroyed that time, and the modem etc was fine.

Also, I've lost at least 3 modems while I've lived here, and none of those surges did anything bad to the rest of the computer. And USB modems are like $15 -- probably cheaper than a phone line surge suppressor.

I think that, nice as they are, the FSF certified wifi with the fairly big antenna are just too risky here as a ESD magnet.

There's quite likely also something going on with the house's wiring to the solar panels. That has a surge suppressor, but I may have not wired it up right when I replaced the charge controller a while ago. I would not be surprised if there was a path like solar panels + wifi adaptor -> phone line that is what blew out the computer in the middle.