In my neck of the woods we see this problem ALOT. This year has been particularly bad, as we are now working our 5th major lightning call in as many weeks. Most of these are EM induction issues that have primarily affected data and alarm networks, but 2 were direct hits. In one of these cases the existing tower to which we affixed our P2P was no longer grounded (verified with voltmeter after the fact) and the strike zapped everything. Any I mean everything. We had shielded cable, and the strike walked through 3 levels of APC data line protection with proper grounds without slowing down. Proper grounding at the tower would have helped, but I don't know how much.
Our second direct hit was residential, and there was some fiber in place, but given that it literally blew a hole in the side of his house I don't think there is a level of protection that would have helped.
One of our biggest hits was an EM on large site with 4 buildings, separated by over 3000'. The buildings have exclusively fiber interconnects, yet all 4 were hit. Anything not plugged into a surge was killed, and all the data lines were affected. Interestingly, one of the buildings did have data surge protection at the switch side, but it only saved the switch and not anything station side. Even more fascinating was that the analog cameras were unaffected, although the dvr nic was fried.
All of these clients were offered more protection, yet declined due to the cost increase vs. paying insurance premiums. The last site is installing lightning rods, but I'm not convinced this won't make the problem worse. We learn a bit more about what works and what doesn't every time, but at the end of the day all I can is "nature be scary".