Riding out hurricane Irma in a truck camper

[HadEnough]

I'm just going to report on my experience. I left Florida with my truck camper after securing my boat down there. I am currently in south Georgia. Irma will only be a tropical storm supposedly once it is here. But I'm going to report on the behavior of my truck camper in high winds. I have seen other people asking about this but not so many people reporting on their experiences in tropical storms and hurricanes with truck campers.

After some thinking my strategy is to leave it on the truck and allow these suspension to absorb some of the rocking. I have also positioned it to face East which will be the direction that most of the strong wind will come from. Of course, a tropical system clocks around in a semicircle as it passes you. So the wind will come from the Northeast and then the southeast but mostly from the East.

As on the highway, I will be keeping all the windows and hatches closed. Because the wind speed will be similar to highway speeds.

In addition to keeping it on the vehicle, I am thinking I will also deploy the stands down to a level where they catch the truck camper if it starts to go over. Not to the level where they take all of the pressure from the wind, just to the point where they will touch if it tips too far. Kind of a compromise between putting it on stands and keeping it in the truck. From what I've read online, keeping it in the truck is preferred mostly due to the weight. And the suspension soaking up some of the rocking. But of course a wider stance and a lower stance is the most stable. There is a lot of for debate.

Keeping on the truck will help me position it so that the aerodynamic side is facing the wind mostly. I think that is a huge advantage. Lowering the two rear stands should help if it gets a little sideways to the wind and starts to tip. But those stands will only do something if it does tip. I will keep them just a little bit off the ground.

As the wind speeds increase, I will let you know what my experience is.

As for other dangers, I am located on the top of a hill away from trees. There were all sorts of options for Refugee encampments around here, but I didn't take them. I looked at the floodplain and found a parking lot that is as high as possible. I am more concerned with flooding than anything else. That's something you can't really Escape. Even if my truck camper did tip over in the wind, I'm not going to die. However, if it goes under water or is washed away, that's a life-threatening situation. So I avoided that at all costs.

I will post to let you guys know how it goes. Over the next 24 hours it will all be happening. It is starting right now.

[Grit_dog]

Glad you faired the storm just fine!

[Freep]

nycsteve wrote:
I don't know if this catches you before the storm hits but here is what I did in Sandy and Irene both of which I was in the camper for. I got the wind direction prediction from the NOAA site which is hour by hour. Go to the 7 day forcast type in the zip of where your at. In the lower right of the page click on the graph. With hourly acurrate prediction of wind direction I was able to keep turning the truck to face the wind. I picked the local high school lot as it offered building shelter on one side and a sturdy chain link fence on the other. My thinking was the fence would catch any blowing debris. Also made sure no trees or power lines where close. No structure on nearby roofs to blow off and hit me. I kept the jacks up so not to stress them with the constant rocking. As long as your mostly pointed into the wind you should be fine. Plus I had wifi till the power went out from the school 🙂
Good Luck!

Windy.com is really good.

[HadEnough]

I did have one incorrect piece of information. I didn't drive 3 hours away. I drove 300 miles away. So it was about four hours and a bit.

Hey burning man. Can you get me into burning man? LOL

I went there last year and got denied at the entrance because the person I was meeting to get a ticket from ended up buying a bad ticket. One that was on the list. I was smart enough to look at the list of bad tickets and found it on there before I purchased it. It's a sad thing that my truck camper has actually been to Burning Man 4 times but I have not been yet. The previous owner went all the time. Being from the East Coast, I don't have the right connections to get into that thing.

It was a pretty amazing feeling just driving there and getting all ready to go in. I could feel The Vibes and I had never been in the desert like that before. It was a great experience up until the moment I had to go to San Francisco instead because I didn't have a valid ticket.

[burningman]

This is exactly what I'd do if my area was evacuated. Except I'd drive further away!
It's gotta be super miserable on the floor of a gym with eleventy-zillion people in an emergency evac shelter.

[TxGearhead]

Kayteg1 wrote:
We drove today back to Houston (we left Houston just days before Harvey going to Florida).
Downtown is on our schedule for tomorrow, but 100 miles east, city of Orange has nice areas with huge number of RV parks. Driving by them it is sad to see trailers resting on their slides, or one park inside the other.
But judging from pile of construction debris in front of each house, the resident are getting back to their life.
We also passed tens and tens of boom trucks going east. Most of them are electrician's truck, but some of them were tree removal trucks.
Looks like Florida is already having lot of help on the way.
Bad part, looks like 50 miles east of Houston one of boom truck driver had to fall asleep. He went via 100 ft of shoulder and made deep cut into the woods.
At the time we passed the scene, the helicopter was already waiting.

Welcome back! How long are you staying this time? You just hanging out downtown?

[nycsteve]

HadEnough wrote:
Also, the truck camper took the storm much better than anticipated. According to the weather I had up to 62 mile an hour wind and it did shake and feel scary a couple times, but it wasn't even enough to touch the jacks to the ground. And they are only a few inches off the ground. That wind came at between 60 and 45 degrees to the truck.

So I can say without a doubt that the Arctic Fox on a Dodge Ram 2500 can easily withstand 60 mile an hour winds without being anywhere near tipping over.

At least one good data point.

Who is going to do the next test? You have to go at higher wins than this. So we can see where they get scary. ;). Ha ha ha

Glad your OK.
My Sandy TC stay was 70ish mph. Never worried about tipping but it was bouncy.

[Kayteg1]

We drove today back to Houston (we left Houston just days before Harvey going to Florida).
Downtown is on our schedule for tomorrow, but 100 miles east, city of Orange has nice areas with huge number of RV parks. Driving by them it is sad to see trailers resting on their slides, or one park inside the other.
But judging from pile of construction debris in front of each house, the resident are getting back to their life.
We also passed tens and tens of boom trucks going east. Most of them are electrician's truck, but some of them were tree removal trucks.
Looks like Florida is already having lot of help on the way.
Bad part, looks like 50 miles east of Houston one of boom truck driver had to fall asleep. He went via 100 ft of shoulder and made deep cut into the woods.
At the time we passed the scene, the helicopter was already waiting.

[HadEnough]

Also, the truck camper took the storm much better than anticipated. According to the weather I had up to 62 mile an hour wind and it did shake and feel scary a couple times, but it wasn't even enough to touch the jacks to the ground. And they are only a few inches off the ground. That wind came at between 60 and 45 degrees to the truck.

So I can say without a doubt that the Arctic Fox on a Dodge Ram 2500 can easily withstand 60 mile an hour winds without being anywhere near tipping over.

At least one good data point.

Who is going to do the next test? You have to go at higher wins than this. So we can see where they get scary. ;). Ha ha ha

[HadEnough]

Oh, wow. Always learning something about RVs here. Thank you for the lesson on those Slide awnings. I had never noticed those before. I don't have that. I have rubber flaps that scrape along the slide tightly.

[Naio]

OP, are you ok???

[work2much]

Commonly called slide topper.

[jimh406]

Yes, they autodeploy when the slide goes out. Not all slides have them.

[HadEnough]

jimh425 wrote:

HadEnough wrote:
I've never even used my awnings.

I'm talking about the slide awnings not "side" awnings. If you did unroll the side awnings, you wouldn't have to worry about them long because they'd leave you.

Okay. Sorry. That's a new term to me. I don't know what that is. Are those the little flaps that keep it weatherproof when the slide is out?

[jimh406]

HadEnough wrote:
I've never even used my awnings.

I'm talking about the slide awnings not "side" awnings. If you did unroll the side awnings, you wouldn't have to worry about them long because they'd leave you.