DVIDSHUB/Flickr Creative Commons
Well y’all, it’s getting to be that time of year. This spring has been a welcome wet one here in Texas, so I reckon the weather patterns for this year, compared to the last few biblical-style drought years we’ve had, will be a little different. Since as RVers we tend to be highly mobile, I thought today we’d chat a bit about what to do when then storms turn from “Regular Ol’ Bad” to “Downright Ugly.”
I remember driving in between Lamesa and Big Spring out in west Texas quite a few summers back, when one of those walls of black clouds and rain hit us. The wind was knocking us around pretty good, it was getting darker and darker in the middle of the afternoon and then the wind started switching direction on us and hail was hitting the back glass even though we were still moving between 60-65 miles an hour! In situations like that you tend to run through all the lists of things people have told to you do and not do in the event of a tornado, but nowhere in those lists are two little friendly words: Don’t Panic. That is a wonderful place to start when dealing with iffy weather with possible (and actual) tornadoes.
Some things about dealing with tornadoes are fairly counter-intuitive, for example don’t assume you can outrun the tornado. Tornadoes on average have better than 110 mph winds, and your RV isn’t going do that in bad weather unless you drive it off a very tall cliff. Another counter intuitive thing you should think about is abandoning the RV. Yes it’s shelter from the rain and wind, but it has so much side area that it will want to fly away when that tornado hits, even if you’re tied down. So if you see the tornado coming, seek shelter outside the RV preferably in some sort of concrete structure or even laying down flat in a ditch (the wind will have a hard time picking you up and blowing you away if you’re even slightly below level ground).
So to conclude, as in all things, keep your wits about you and you’ll make the correct decisions.