Dell :: Network Card Fried

Well, as many of you may have seen on the news (in the US anyway), Louisville, Kentucky was hit by some massive storms on August 4th.

I was unlucky enough to be on the campus at the University of Louisville, where I live in a dorm. During the rain and thunder, I was surfing the web and watching a little TV to pass the time due to canceled classes.

All of a sudden there was a bright flash, and a loud crack and boom. I had later been informed that the building was hit by that particular bolt of lightning.

At the same time as the flash, my laptop completely froze, forcing me to hard reboot. Nothing else in the room was affected. Lights didn't flicker once, TV never skipped a beat. My electronics are all plugged into a quality surge protector; this and the fact that we still had power and cable, I knew there wasn't a power surge.

However, the internet was knocked out for the whole building. Come to find out today, my laptop no longer recognizes when an ethernet cable is plugged into the port, thus preventing me from connecting to any LAN; home, on campus or otherwise.

QUESTION

This leads me to the question: Is it possible for there to be an electrical surge carried over an ethernet cable that is strong enough to fry/disable an internal network card?

In case you're wondering, I'm currently connected via wireless. Specs are in my sig (Dell E4300).