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Relating to this question : Explain the exploding pipe in The Shawshank RedemptionIn that scene Andy is timing his strikes on the sewage line to the match the lighting strikes (shouldn't it be the thunder he waits for?).

What would he have done if there was no lighting?

He has already followed his plan to a point that he couldn't just slip back into his cell and replace everything. So he needed to crawl out through the pipe but he hadn't made a hole in it already or even weakened the pipe in anyway. I always assumed it was because of the pressure in the pipe that kept him from making a hole before, like he had in his wall, but "Explain the exploding pipe" shows that it was a drama effect only.

He needed to go out that pipe, he had only a short amount of time to escape and if the storm hadn't come through he wouldn't have been able to make so much noise breaking into the pipe.

Andy is meticulous so I don't believe he would have left this detail to such a great chance as a lighting storm (even if he checked for a storm before he switched the books there would be no guarantee of lighting) so how else would he have gotten the pipe open with the limited time frame he had to do it in?

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I kinda feel like this is trying to poke a hole in the movie and that any answers are mostly speculative. – DForck42♦ Dec 26 '12 at 20:54
@DForck42 It may very well be a plot-hole. I'm hoping there is some information somewhere that may shed some light such as deleted scenes, pages of script that weren't used, interviews with Stephen King or the screenwriter, etc. I just normally don't like to place limits on sources since sometimes movies have all of the visual clues needed to solve perceived plot-holes but are sometimes missed. – Kevin Howell Dec 26 '12 at 22:10
The answer movies.stackexchange.com/a/1822/3707 to the linked to question mentions that the escape story is told from the perspective of Red, who wasn't there. So it might be that Red invented this to make the story more dramatic. – sharptooth Dec 29 '12 at 12:23
@sharptooth That may be but my only problem with that answer is that Red isn't talking to anyone. So why is he making the story of his escape dramatic when he hasn't dramatized much else? – Kevin Howell Dec 31 '12 at 15:00

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My guess is that he would have had to go ahead and break the pipe anyway (as you point out, he has already carried out his plan past the point of no return). The thunder provided a way to mask the sound and give him more chances to open the pipe, but if there had been no storm, he probably would have still broken open the pipe and hoped that either no one figured out what the sound was or that it would take the guards too long to figure out where the noise was coming from.

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