RV Camping Severe Weather Awareness Part 3

~Our Stories Part 3~

We have taken many RV Camping Trips in our lives. Most of them occur with no problems and no weather related issues. However, there have been a few travel adventures we have taken that have resulted in us having to deal with severe weather. That is why we are trying to get the word out on the best action to take when dealing with storms in our RV Camping Severe Weather Awareness Series.

This story has more to do with my Sister, J, and her experience with a Popup Camper.

Long June Trip

We had been out RV Camping in the month of June for an extended trip. The weather had been off and on with storms but none severe thankfully. Until June 17th.

Storm Prediction

The Meteorologists in our area were predicting strong storms to move in later in the day. I kept asking my family what they wanted to do. I told Mark I really wanted to decide about what we were going to do because getting Aiden and all his medical equipment and supplies all packed up was going to take some time. This would be especially true if we were going to leave the campground for the night.

Our Decision

We all decided to just stay at our campsites since it didn’t appear that the storms were going to directly impact us too much. At 10PM when we went to put Aiden to bed, we noticed the winds had come up quite a bit. This is normal where we were staying so we went outside and tied everything down to ensure stuff wouldn’t blow away.

As the Night Went On

Around 11PM the storms started getting stronger around us. It was just a few minutes past 11PM that they issued a Thunderstorm Warning for our area. We didn’t quite know where to go or what to do. The storms were coming in from every direction. We were surrounded but knew we needed to head in some direction. Staying in our RVs was not going to be a good option. They were predicting these storms to contain very heavy rain, large hail, and destructive winds.

Heading Out to Seek Shelter

We made the decision to head southwest to a small town where we could seek shelter inside a sturdy building if we needed to. The drive was rough, but we finally made it. We waited out the storm in our vehicles because it turned into just heavy rains where we were. By 2AM we finally were able to head back to our campsites and what we found when we arrived came as a complete shock.

“Messy People”

When we pulled into the campground, I said to Mark “good grief, someone really made a mess out here” because there was (what we thought) was trash scattered everywhere. As we got closer, we found much larger items scattered everywhere. When we turned down the road leading to our campsites, we found it to be my sisters belongings from her Popup Camper! Her RV Camper had been hit the hardest, we assume because it was the last campsite on the road, right on the end.

Collecting Belongings

It was still pouring down rain but the guys (my Dad and husband) and my mother and sister spent at least an hour trying to collect her belongings as best they could with the lights from our vehicles and flashlights.

They gathered up her TV, clothing, and found one of her mattresses across the street in a tree! The front door to her camper was ripped off as well. Additionally, with all the heavy down pours, there was standing water throughout her camper.

The entire RV was found to be a total loss by the insurance company. J has since purchased a larger RV Travel Trailer.

Lessons Learned

The lesson she says she learned from this experience was that if you have a Popup RV Camper, it’s a good idea to tie down pop out beds to the trailer underneath. That will help with high winds.

What she found to have happened was that the winds were so bad that the ends of the Popup blew upward and slammed down so hard that it bent the frame.

Most importantly, she was very happy that we had made the decision to leave the campground because if she had been inside of it, she could have been hurt badly or worse.

That is it for RV Camping Severe Weather Awareness Part 3! If you haven’t read Parts 1 & 2 yet, be sure to check them out below in the links.