As I said,
a thunderstorm is the worst enemy to an Ethernet chip. But since you told us that the cable is detected when you push up the cable, I would suspect loose connections. Either the port pins are corroded with oxides/pins damaged or the pins of the port has lost contacted with the motherboard soldering joints. Show the problem to a laptop repair technician and he/she should fix it in no time.
In your case, the Ethernet chip is very much alive and working since you mentioned that the cable is detected when you push it or such. So that is good news for you.

Even at the worst case of ripped of solder joints, it should be cheap to get it repaired.