I can see why akporo in my area use thunder will fire you as a curse word, because u can't be shielded from it, except you are a child of God.
As lightning follows a path that is about an inch in diameter, it superheats this air making it expand. As the air cools it contracts. Then surrounding air vibrates due to the supersonic shockwave.
The sound is always scary
The thunderstorm creates a massive amount of electric voltage in the neighbourhood of two hundred thousand volts (200,000V) to five hundred thousand volts (500,000V) and packing between 1200 amperes to 200,000 amperes in electric current.
Can this be used as a source of electricity?
Sadly, no. The cost of technology to do that is not worth the effort.