It happened. We had a strong thunderstorm this night but by the time they had a fright it was just raining. Window in the kitchen was open, birds were in the living room sleeping, I was in the basement reading. Don't know what scared them, but it doesn't matter. I heard a sound as if we had tennis ball size hail outside. I rushed upstairs hoping it was a tennis ball hail outside but unfortunately the sound was my birds going crazy in their cages. I don't have much experience with night frights. I turned on the light, it took them some time to calm down. I saw that some of them had blood on the wings. I recalled I read about using cornstarch to stop bleeding, but the problem is that I didn't have any cornstarch or even flour in the house (I will from now on!). My daughter is gluten-sensitive, that's why I don't have even flour. I have some gluten free baking mixes but the last time I put it on my burn (when I was promised that flour helps very well) I had even worse irritation, so I decided not to risk (I guess it's all bein said about regular wheat flour). I wanted to go to the store to get cornstarch but I was afraid to leave the birds alone (other people are sleeping and don't give a damn). Cuddles was the one who seemed to have more blood that some others (poor Cuddles, not again!) but she recently runs away from me because I was trying to treat her when she was sick. I just mean that trying to get her and do more manipulations to her would cause more stress and I wanted everybody to calm down. They all seemed to be more or less OK, but I will definitely find out tomorrow. While they went back to their perches, I didn't see any significant bleeding. so I guess I am not going to the store at night.
Poor poor babies! I learned that it's better not to pick them up trying to help as they are really in the different reality when it happens. I will pray for them to be OK!

They will probably be all right now. You don't need to put cornstarch on anything unless the bleeding is ongoing. When feathers are knocked out completely the bleeding usually stops very quickly. It's more of a problem if the feather is only loose and is wobbling around, re-opening the wound in the process.

Turning the light on is exactly the right thing to do. Babies take longer to settle down than adult birds do, but if they don't have babies flapping around to set them off most adult birds will stop flapping as soon as you turn the light on. It takes a while for them to relax and feel safe again after a night fright, so it's good to leave the light on for a while afterward. If you turn it off too soon they're likely to have another night fright in the near future. If you want to go back to bed yourself you can just leave the light on - it'll make the birds feel safe, and one night of way too much light shouldn't make their hormones go crazy.

thank you. they seemed to be all right in the morning. Anything else to watch for?

If any of the feathers that got knocked loose are still attached, there might be some more bleeding if they get bumped again so watch out for that. There might also be some squawking and complaining from the discomfort caused by the loose feather, particularly when the bird is re-folding its wing after flying or stretching. Cockatiels are big sissies who make a lot of noise about things like this, and it worries the owner but it's not a serious problem. Most of the time loose feathers will fall out after a while but occasionally they heal back into place.

There will be some large blood feathers while new feathers are growing in to replace the ones that got knocked out. If there's any bird that lost a lot of wing feathers, try to make sure that they don't get into an accident that would knock the blood feathers loose. When a bird has a lot of old feathers around a blood feather, it helps support and protect the new feather. When the old feathers are gone this protection is gone too, and the risk of accidents is higher.

my birds all are doing OK. But getting back to the conversation of going out of town for vacation, when it was suggested that somebody comes once a day to check on birds, I don't think it's a good idea because of the possible night frights. What would happen if I didn't come and didn't turn on the light? would they be flying insane until they all are very much hurt?

If there's a night fright while you're gone it could be disastrous. You could leave a light on all the time to help prevent this. Surprisingly, using 24 hours of light for several days in a row is considered to be a good way to disrupt breeding urges (apparently it confuses the body so they're not sure what season it is). So you probably wouldn't come home to a pile of eggs.