Wind

[Wendy]

Have you ever been in wind, while parked, where you felt it necessary to pull in the slides?

How about taking down the TV and/or internet satellite dishes?

Just wondering as the wind beats on the MH here in Death Valley.

Wendy
Windswept in Death Valley

 

[Ned]

We have kept the slide in at Deming, NM, when the wind was blowing much of Mexico north, but just to keep the dust out.  We've kept the satellite TV antenna up in some very high winds (~50mph) and have sometimes lost the signal when the dish was moved, but were able to repoint when the wind died down.  The Datastorm has been field tested in 75mph winds so we just leave it up and have never lost the signal due to wind.

 

[Karl]

Wendy,

I don't have any slides, but there have been several times, up in Wisconsin's "Tornado Alley", that I've retracted all awnings, the t.v. antenna, and added cargo straps to the satellite tripod. The winds get pretty gusty and the coach buffets around a bit, but never to the point where I thought I'd have to abandon it. With slides, I would err on the side of caution and retract them in extreme conditions. There's a lot of weight on them, and I wouldn't want to risk twisting or other damage to the mechanisms and support framing. Just my opinion. 

 

[Tom]

Wendy,

A couple of years ago we were in a state park in NM when the wind got really bad. I was afraid the coach might even flip over and I retracted the awnings.

The last week or so we've had such high winds that I haven't attempted to put up the HN dish.

 

[Daisy]

Wendy:

We've pulled in the slide several times during high winds and also the window awnings.  The slide has an awning that can get to flapping heavily and it's easier to pull in the slide than replace the awning.  We rarely put the big awning out, so that is never a problem getting that furled when anticipating high winds.  We also put the TV antenna to bed for awhile.  We usually have enough recorded on TIVO anyway, to watch something if we really want to while waiting out the storm.  We try to batten down all hatches and just wait it out whereever we happen to be.  Better safe than sorry. 

One time we were camped at an RV park in AZ and our site was next to a small wash.  We had a horrendous rain storm, that came down in buckets.  That wash began to fill up quite rapidly and as I watched it rise I swore it was coming up and inch a minute.  I've never seen that much water "grow" so fast.  I told Fred that I hoped he had quick disconnects on all our life support attachments on the stanchion out our window, as I feared we'd have to make a quick retreat to somewhere, who knows where.  As the water neared the top of the 3 or 4 foot wash, the rain stopped just as quickly as it had started and we watched the water slowly retreat back into the soil.  This was one of our first years in the AZ desert and had no idea that it could rain so much in so short a time.

We've grown accustomed to it now and don't even think twice about rainstorms anymore; but to transplanted New Englanders, it seemed quite frightening at the time.

Daisy