[Asterisk-biz] D-Channels Dropping During Storms?

[Matt]

B.S. or not?

We had a lightening storm come through our area....

I dropped the d-channel on my asterisk box... a d-channel on my Nortel
phone system.... 2 DS3's and another PRI (d-channel) on an access
server.

The phone company is saying.. well that happens during a storm.....
blah blah.... my question is.. is this B.S. or is it a fact of life? 
Anything I can do to stabelize things better?