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iamsmonk
Senior Member
Joined: 14 Nov 2010
Location: North Carolina
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 114
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Topic: What a storm... Posted: 20 Jun 2011 at 10:54pm |
This weekend's camping trip was one for the books. In all my years of camping I've only been scared twice and this weekend was one of them. Two years ago we were camping in our pop-up in the NC mountains and experienced one monster of a storm. I'm not usually afraid of lightning but that weekend it was so close, frequent and strong, I was a bit edgy to say the least.
This weekend it was wind.....we lucked up and got a lovely site we'd been trying to reserve for 2 years now. It's big, secluded and easy to back in to. We arrived Friday night and got mostly set up before dark. Weatherman said the weekend was going to be HOT and he was right on the money. We were lounging around Saturday afternoon, both of us deep in our novels. Between the heat and the book I was getting pretty drowsy so around 3:30 I went in the pod to catch some cool air and 40 winks. At 4:00 Carol came in to wake me up, said a storm was coming in FAST! I jumped up, went out and OMG!!! The wind was incredible and the sky coming in was so dark. I drove a couple of stakes in our EZ-Up, attached the straps to the dome which was about to take flight and staked them down. While we were trying to get everything safely stored we heard an awful sound...two HUGE pine trees went crashing down. Luckily no one was under them! But needless to say it scared the HELL out of us! We got everything as secure as we could and went in the pod, sitting at the dinette just waiting. I got my cell phone, truck keys and wallet just in case we needed to make a quick exit, but after a bit, the wind died down. We got a bit of rain, but not too much. The power went out about 4:30 so we lost the weather station on the TV and our radio did not have any batteries! Top of our to-do list is get batteries for the radio. A handful of campers decided to pull out and head home since camping with their kids with no electricity was unbearable. A pop-up a few sites away had some major damage to their awning. The power finally came back on around 10:30pm. Other than that I think everybody else was OK. The rest of the weekend was fine. When we got home today we were barely able to get the truck and the pod into the driveway due to all the limbs and branches covering the driveway. We have a few downed trees here at the house, but fortunatly none on the house.
This is the pod on our lovely campsite:
It's kinda hard to tell the size of this, but it's the roots of the two pines that went down:
Hope everyone had a great weekend.
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Sherrie & Carol,
Henri, Jay & Tanner
2004 Dodge Dakota w/4.7 V8
2011 r-pod 177
Let's go camping!
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kymooses
Senior Member
Joined: 01 Aug 2010
Location: Louisville, Ky
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1807
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Posted: 20 Jun 2011 at 11:15pm |
That's a really nice looking site you have there! Glad to hear everything turned out okay, and that afterwards it was a nice weekend for you still. I think that same storm moved through here earlier the night before. It certainly was some pretty strong winds if it was the same front that we had.
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tpierce220
Senior Member
Joined: 14 Jan 2011
Location: Oswego IL
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Posts: 281
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 8:15am |
It's good to know that you're safe. We had a nasty storm blow in where we were camping over Memorial Day. The owner told us we had 45 minutes before the storm was going to hit, and he was right. We had six people huddled inside the Pod while the storm can in with pretty strong winds and rain. We were thankful that nothing bad happened and were even more thankful that we weren't in a tent.
Tim
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Adventures with ¡Podtástic!--Life in a Forest River RPod 182G with Tim and Louis and our two cats, Desi and Lucy. Check our website at http://podtastic.info for information on our journeys.
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Caverkim
Senior Member
Joined: 28 Jun 2010
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Posts: 111
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 8:44am |
There sure have been some horrible storms lately. Glad all turned out ok for you!
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caver*pod 175/Louisville KY
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techntrek
Admin Group - pHp
Joined: 29 Jul 2009
Location: MD
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 9062
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 10:06am |
Definitely a wild spring for storms. Also glad to hear you were ok.
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Snowbound
Senior Member
Joined: 17 Apr 2011
Location: Edmonton, AB
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 270
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 1:32pm |
You're getting wind and we are getting torrential rain. We had a month's rain over the last couple of days. Thank goodness it is not raining today while we dry out the stuff from our basement. The only good thing is the firefighters have got a jump on that wild fire up north at last. The fire has burned an area the size of Prince Edward Island. Are we all getting weird weather or is it just reporting making it seem so?
Really glad everyone is ok.
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Tom and Bette
in our 177 "The Gastropod"
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HuronSailor
podders Helping podders - pHp
Joined: 10 Jun 2009
Location: Owosso MI
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 704
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 3:03pm |
It has been a wild spring. While we were camping in Ontario earlier this month we had two nights of brief but violent thunderstorms: almost continuous strobing lightning, high winds, and even hail. Trees down all over, including one in our campsite. Immediately after the storm passed, about 3:00 AM, the park folks were out with tractors and chainsaws clearing the park roads. After seeing the extent of the storm damage the next morning, I don't think we would have been able to leave if they hadn't jumped right on it.
But no damage done to pod or TV, and at least I didn't have to get up, put on my foulies, and go out to make sure the anchor wasn't dragging like I would have done in years past when we were cruising up in that area.
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.: Mark & Beth :: Silverado 5.3L :: 2018 rPod 180 :.
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Guests
Guest Group
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 6:35pm |
Glad to hear everyone survived their respective storm experiences. It kind of reminds me of my stay at Elkmont in the Smoky's last fall. They were using snow plow trucks to clear the leaves and smaller limbs from the roads. The campground entrance was blocked for a while due a downed tree but, the NPS was really on top of the situation and had things cleared quick.
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HuronSailor
podders Helping podders - pHp
Joined: 10 Jun 2009
Location: Owosso MI
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 704
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Posted: 21 Jun 2011 at 7:57pm |
Originally posted by David
They were using snow plow trucks to clear the leaves and smaller limbs ... |
Holy smoke! You win.
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.: Mark & Beth :: Silverado 5.3L :: 2018 rPod 180 :.
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