Prep for a Hurricane

It is past now, thank God. But I am one of those that would have loaded the TC and headed West. I spent one night in a rental beach house when Katrina threatened, I was back in my recliner at home before it made landfall.

Best preparation is to load the camper on your truck and head for the hills out of the path of the hurricane. Problem solved.

With associated flooding and high water that comes with these storms, I would have kept the TC on the truck and looked at how to move more of my belongings to higher ground. I can deal with the winds and even anchor my truck, but I don't know how you can deal with rising water if there is no place to go. Even saturated ground can be an issue if your TC starts to sink or the ground is too soft to bring your truck in to recover it - I think I will continue to live in my perpetual drizzle a little longer rather deal with the massive deluge dumps you have received.

My TC weathered the Nor'easter fine off the truck on pallets, even the tarp stayed down with a ton of ratchet straps. Thankfully the hurricane is staying out to sea. Now back to figuring out when we can get back down to AI to do some fishing!

Hope this thread will help someone else when the need arises. I for one will be looking into some real long anchors, might end up using them down to AI instead of lowering my jacks.

nycsteve wrote:

Slick Rick wrote:
I've got mine on the truck during this ****. I've got the jacks down but most of the weight is on the truck. So far so good, it hasn't moved and it's blowing pretty good out there! And I don't have the tiedowns on. Glad the real storm is heading out to sea!
The worst thing about this storm is we're missing the red drum bite on AI!:(
Rick

With the jacks down I would think if the wind was really rocking it would stress the jacks at attachment point. Whether a real concern or not, I never put the jacks down, wind or not.

Good point, thanks.
Got the jacks up and the happijacs on.
This NE'er is blowing it up pretty good, 50 mph gusts, but thankfully Joaquin is staying offshore.
And this was my weekend for some beach fishing, that's not gonna happen!
Be safe out there.
Rick

OK. This analysis shows how far from the original OFCL (NHC's best track: corrected consensus forecast track) the 3-day OFCL track runs are, from Thursday (the inception of the hurricane), to Friday, to finally, Saturday (today). This analysis isn't meant to trash any hurricane prediction science. It is meant to demonstrate that in just 1 day, the predicted official NHC consensus track can change drastically, putting one in a situation by deminishing your time-window of escape. The models with the best long-term track record (2014 NHC analysis; and these may change from year-to-year) are: the FSSE Superensemble and OFCL (If I recall, they vary by only ~~ 30 nautical miles after forensic analysis). There are individual model ensembles that sometimes outperform the top long-term product, but these are anomalies. So, this is why the NHC OFCL is the only track shown to the public (to minimise confusion).

All though I still find it hard to believe a tc can withstand a f4 tornado direct hit without completely exploding. I do thoroughly believe a few 4 foot hurricane anchors would certainly hold your TC down in some super severe straight line winds. The ground may be saturated but it isn't four foot down. Hurricane anchors are not those little silver anchors people use to tie their awnings down so they don't flap.

Slick Rick wrote:
I've got mine on the truck during this ****. I've got the jacks down but most of the weight is on the truck. So far so good, it hasn't moved and it's blowing pretty good out there! And I don't have the tiedowns on. Glad the real storm is heading out to sea!
The worst thing about this storm is we're missing the red drum bite on AI!:(
Rick

With the jacks down I would think if the wind was really rocking it would stress the jacks at attachment point. Whether a real concern or not, I never put the jacks down, wind or not.

Preparedness is a fine topic to explore, no matter what the threat. If it were me, and I was in the track of a hurricane, I would load up the camper and skip town. Failing that, I would be sure to have 6 hurricane screws for use with the camper on the truck. Why 6? With the long screws you could have one at the front, screwed all the way to terra firma and cinch up the winch cable down to it. Two on each side near the main body of the TC but not over the overhang using a pair of long 3", 10K pound yellow straps draped over the TC to the screws. At the rear, using a 2 ton come along or truckers ratchet tie the last screw to the trailer hitch. Of course, drop the jacks to snug just to have a more stable footprint. The truck needs to be in 4WD with the hubs on and in low range with the e-brake on. This might be a teachable moment however, and thinking ahead pour six, foot-wide by 3 feet deep anchor pillars with big looping rebar anchor points. You know, this might get you from an 85 mph wind to a 110 wind before the TC is blown to bits.
In a preparedness related way, when we were under threat from a wild fire in August (this is CA) my aging Lance TC was undergoing upgrades and my truck was in the shop getting a front axle upgrade. What to do? We packed a suitcase with enough clothes for 10 days; grabbed a couple boxes of pictures and important papers; all our computers and backups; a few other valuables; packed the Jeep Grand Cherokee and were ready to leave. Our neighbor who has horses, cows, and many canines had to call a wrangler to ship his livestock off to the fairgrounds where he spent several days. We have a 4-wheel horse trailer I use to take our household trash to the dump. We could have used it to haul his cows. He subsequently bought a V-10 Dodge and a huge horse trailer, and he would still use our trash trailer to remove some of this livestock, in the future. The fact was both of us were unprepared to evacuate for the reasons stated above. The sad fact is: it's probably too late to do anything about a hurricane or wildfire if you haven't done at least some prep ahead of time. Time to make a list.
jefe

I've got mine on the truck during this ****. I've got the jacks down but most of the weight is on the truck. So far so good, it hasn't moved and it's blowing pretty good out there! And I don't have the tiedowns on. Glad the real storm is heading out to sea!
The worst thing about this storm is we're missing the red drum bite on AI!:(
Rick