Riding Out Hurricane Irma...I Hope!

I don't know why, but it seems we have always been good at experiencing a lot of "firsts" in our lives, especially when it comes to weather. And within the next two days, it appears we are going to experience another one. Therefore, I am delaying the post about our park review and the subsequent post about our new daily driver, in order to deal with this new emergency... Hurricane Irma.

My/our history with weather...

Before I get into that, it seems we have had our share of extreme weather. In 1954, my family's farm went through the flood of 1954. Our house and buildings weren't hurt, but most of our low ground (about half of the total acreage) saw about three feet of water from the overflow of the Yellow River. That flood included most of the Yellow River from Marshall County into Starke County, IN and probably beyond. I was only six at the time but I still remember that vividly (what I saw of it). Our road had a low spot at the northeast end of our farm, and that road became impassible for about a week.

Sometime in the mid-60s, a close friend and I slept through a tornado in a 8 x 16 cabin that we camped in regularly. The next morning, we found huge oak trees down within a hundred feet of us, as well as farther east at my family farm. We were lucky.

In later years, I went through the blizzard of 1978, in Mishawaka, Indiana, where I was a manager at a luxury apartment complex. We had snow four feet deep on the level, and drifting off the tops of two story buildings that were roughly 24 feet high! It took over five days to even begin to dig out from that. In one especially memorable case (of many), a pregnant lady had to be taken out and to the nearest road a half mile away to meet an ambulance... by snowmobile!

When we moved to Mesa, AZ, our first summer there in 1995 hit record highs of 121 degrees, and seemed to bounce around those temps for nearly three weeks! Thank God we had inside jobs where the air conditioning was on, but when we stepped outside at mid-afternoon, it was like walking into an oven!

When we moved back to Arkansas in 2005, it wasn't long before we went through the biggest ice storm the area has ever seen. We lost power at around 4:30 PM on a Tuesday and didn't get it back until about the same time on Friday. We were lucky. Many others farther away from the highway didn't get power back for over three weeks! Trees were full of "widowmakers" (hanging broken branches) for years, and throughout several Midwest states!

Our back yard after the huge ice storm of 2007.

Trees were down on our street both directions from our house (and a huge limb from one ON our house), so even if we had 4WD, we couldn't have gotten out to go anywhere. Phone lines were down, cell phone towers were down, and our only communication with the outside world was from a small portable radio and an emergency scanner... all one way! If we were to have an emergency of our own, we couldn't have even called anyone for help!

Now, here we are back in Florida after an absence of twenty-four years, and our first hurricane season brings us the largest hurricane on record! What are we... a magnet for disasters?!

The current situation...

We have been watching the weather reports diligently, and are well aware of changes happening, almost to the minute. At first it seemed like we were going to be right in the middle of it as it came straight up the middle of the state. Then the predictions changed slightly and it looked like the center cone of the hurricane would go offshore by the time it got this far north. But that was short-lived.

Now, the predictions are for the path to go back to the center of the state again. Needless to say, that brought a lot of anxious moments while we watched reports of both weather and traffic. It wasn't until this morning, Friday the 8th of September, that we have arrived at a decision. We're staying.

In watching the predictions for how much the wind will decrease as the cone moves northward, it appears that the wind will reduce to less than 100 mph (and hopefully less than that) by the time it gets to us. We can handle that... I hope.

Any vehicle that is made for the road is built to withstand 100 mph+ winds... from the front. If the hurricane had gone east of us, the strongest winds at our location would have been from the north, which we are already facing. No problem.

Our only fear now is that if the cone comes over us, the winds will rotate through all four directions... from the east at first, and then from the west as the trailing edge of the cone goes by. Getting hit from the side with winds like this is not good for an RV with sides as huge as ours.

The only thing in our favor is weight. We're already overloaded, and probably close to 13,000 pounds. The RV next to us, to our east is even larger, probably weighing in at over 18,000 pounds. The protection from the west isn't as good, as we have a smaller Class C two spaces away. Its weight is probably less than 10,000 pounds.

We will have winds from the north, if the cone goes east of us... or from the south, if the cone goes west of us. We can handle those 100 mph winds that hit us from either end. It's the side I worry about.

I wouldn't begin to consider staying if in a wooden frame structure, especially if I didn't know how it was built. But this RV is built with a steel cage. Even if it rolls over, it will stay intact with those winds. If that were to happen (worst case scenario) we have a safe zone (from flying debris or even broken windows) in the hallway. We have the kitchen and bathroom on one side, and the refrigerator and shower on the other side. We could stay protected for a few hours if necessary. There are no open flames to worry about... the fridge is on electric, but we'll shut it down totally if we lose power, so that the gas won't kick on automatically.

All of our vehicles, including the trailer are fully insured, so if anything happens, we are fully covered for the full value, including a rental car, if ours isn't drivable, or a motel if our living quarters are beyond living in. All that is of little concern to us. Only our safety matters.

The other influence in our decision to stay was the traffic reports, and with that I include resources, because you have to go out in traffic to get to them. Even if we were to leave, it would cost us a couple tanks of fuel for both vehicles to get far enough away and back again. The direction to go would be a guess in itself, considering we don't even have a firm prediction on where this hurricane is going! And with the crowds already out there trying to find locations to park, I don't want the hassle of fighting those crowds or trying to compete with them!

First, they said Hurricane Irma would go up the east coast. Now, the latest prediction has it heading inland, clear up to Tennessee! In order to get out of the "estimated path", we would have to go clear over to southwestern Alabama, and even that wouldn't keep us out of the torrential rains that will expand out much farther than the zones shown on maps! And if we get rain, the last place we want to be is in the middle of swampland!

The only thing we could hope for is to get farther away to the north, to lessen the impact from high winds. There is no escaping the rain! I'm not going to waste my time and money driving half way across the country to try to escape rain! And from what I see in the predictions, the wind speed is going to drop drastically from a potential maximum of 115 south of Orlando, to less than 70 at the Florida/Georgia border. Anything less than 110 mph is back to tropical storm intensity, and Florida sees plenty of those, and heavy rains, all the time! I don't think that is worth all the hassle of pulling up stakes to leave for a few hours!

This morning, I searched for "emergency scanner" in the app store and downloaded the one with the highest reviews onto the smart phone. Now I can listen to our local Marion County emergency personnel to keep up with what's going on around the area. I can already tell from the reports that it is getting crazy out there. I'm glad I'm off the roads!

There are other scanner apps available, that you can program just like a normal scanner, so you can even listen to the utility crews, once you know what frequency they are on. In any emergency, a good scanner will give you more up to date information on local happenings than any other source!

Our current preparations...

As far as other preparations, we have about a third of a tank of fuel in the RV, and a quarter of a tank in the van. It's probably not enough to run the generator, as it cuts off at a third of a tank. We have about a quarter of a tank of propane. We thought about going out to refill... but if we aren't going anywhere, what is the point? We have enough gas to run the engine if we need to, and that propane will last at least into next week. This 85# tank hasn't been refilled since April 1st, so we don't use that much! The fridge has been running on 120-volts, and we use the microwave more than the stove for cooking.

Our heat is from a separate 30# tank feeding the Big Buddy catalytic heater. (Our furnace doesn't even work right now). The only thing we really use propane for is the water heater, about every three days. We don't currently have a 120-volt heating element for it, but it's on our want list. And if we had to, we can always heat water with the microwave, or if we're without power, one of our other portable stoves for washing. Having redundant systems is always a good thing for back-up.

We have 300 watts of solar on the trailer, and 2000 watts of pure sine wave 120-volt power if we need it. That's enough to run the microwave. We can also start the RV engine and run it to recharge battery power on the RV or trailer if we need to. The stuff in the refrigerator and freezer will be fine for several hours (maybe up to a day) if we don't get into it too often, and we have the fridge in the trailer as a backup, although it requires power, too. If the park loses power, the odds are in our favor that it won't be for long. After all, the hurricane winds will only last for a few hours. The rain is predicted to end sometime Monday, so the electrical and other crews will be out very quickly.

As far as air conditioning, Hurricane Irma is also going to bring in cooler temperatures next week, down to 78 Sunday and 74 Monday, so we can open the windows and enjoy it. Anything below 85 degrees and we can usually get by without air conditioning... if it isn't too humid. We may still see some temps in the upper 80's, but I think we are done with 90s for this season. And the peak is only reached for a couple hours in the afternoon, so with fans, we can deal with that if we have to.

And yes, we have battery powered fans and plenty of batteries for anything we would need to use, so that's not an issue. We also have smaller inverters (up to 200 watts) here in the RV, if we need them, but most of our electronics can also be run on 12 volts, so we have everything we need.

We did our major grocery shopping for the month a couple days ago, so we are pretty well stocked. We just cooked a huge pork roast in the crock pot, and it is divided up and refrigerated for meals for the next couple of days. We have many other things in the pantry, too.

Protecting the picnic table next door from wind.

As far as outside preps, we have already turned the picnic table on the site next to us upside-down. No later than tomorrow we will also turn ours upside-down. Any high winds will pass easily through the legs, whereas the flat top could catch wind. Any others are far enough away that if the wind flips them over, they will remain that way where they land. We have some tall pine trees around us, but the only foliage on them is way up high. They've survived storms before, so I hope they can survive another one! We can't do anything about those, anyway.

I'll chock our trailers wheels on both sides so that it can't be pushed by the winds. Other than that, there isn't much more we can do with the trailer. My biggest concern with damage on any of the vehicles is flying debris from any irresponsible people around us leaving things outside that could be caught by the wind. And not knowing what direction it will be coming from makes it hard to avoid problems like that!

Notice in the photo above that the guy behind us and to our left still has stuff outside that could blow, even though the maintenance guy took the awning down. The resident has been gone for over a month!

Some of the other residents, too, have already left for other parts to avoid the hurricane, but I think it will be a futile effort for them. Some have storage sheds, picnic tables, awnings still out, and many other things that could potentially turn into missiles if the winds are strong enough. But most of them are far enough away from us that they shouldn't be a big problem... I hope!

We will also bring our window awnings in. We don't have any slide-outs, but for those that have them and have awnings over the slide-outs, those also need to be brought in. A high wind will shred ANY awning that is left out, and damage the supports! Nor do we have any antennas or anything else to catch wind. Other than these items, we are pretty well stream-lined for winds... except for direct hits from the sides. That is our only concern, but we'll deal with it, whatever comes.

We will refresh our tanks, no later than tomorrow, and take showers before the storm hits. We also have five extra one-gallon water jugs that we will fill. I had even considered filling the two eight-gallon wheeled Hydrollers that we use for water for the trailer, but seeing the latest reports, I think that would be overkill. Our normal capacities will get us by for a few days. We're out of bottled drinking water, but our water here is good, and we'll get by with that.

As far as rain and flooding, we already know that the yards here collect water in shallow puddles. But I also know that there is enough drainage that it won't get much deeper than that. We are surrounded by drainage ditches that all lead into the Oklawaha River Basin, less than a mile away. It would have to flood drastically before it would back up this far. Therefore, I see no need to empty certain things out of the basement storage compartments on the RV. Our predicted rainfall is supposed to be around 8 inches, but the drainage should keep it to less than an inch under the vehicles. The basement compartments are high enough off the ground. If the water gets that high, we may have it in the trailer and the van also. It will be what it will be. One can only do so much.

So far this morning, we still have partly sunny skies. Sharon has done a last load of laundry before the storm, and I see the owner and maintenance guy are out mowing and trimming in our area. At least the park will look good for Irma!

I don't have a lot of photos to show for now, but the upcoming review of our park will have more than enough to make up for it.

As always, comments are welcome, and thank you to all those who have clicked on our links and/or made a purchase through them. I will do one more post (probably next Tuesday) after the hurricane to report on any damages, and then next Friday will be the post on the review of our park. Thanks for reading along with our adventures!