For peace of mind, you'll have to face your fear of being out of control.  My suggestion would be to go skydiving, or bungee jump(okay, it doesn't have to be that "extreme")(I haven't done either though I have considered adding them to my bucket list.) I have had the fear of death put into me many times in situations completely out of my control that tornadoes and such don't faze me anymore. That doesn't mean I don't take prudent precautions or shelter down in a hardened building as necessary.

Bad weather examples:(none of which anything to do with RV's) 

At sea during Supertyphoon Omar in the South Pacific winds clocked at 254 knots, on a 700 foot ship that was porpoising through 90 foot waves.(think SS Edmund Fitzgerald)

8.1 earthquake in Guam, even though I had been in several earthquakes before, nothing can compare to what literally felt like the end of the world( great campfire story)

20 minutes from being in the middle of the Joplin,MO EF5 tornado (on the road from Chicago to Dallas), I was planning to stop for fuel at a station in Joplin,MO that I use on this trip often. With the weather the way it was that day, I pulled into a rest area and waited it out(the rest area was hit pretty hard by hail). The station was obliterated by the time I got there and had I pushed on, I would have been there just as the tornado hit.

I could go on, but in each instance,  I only had time to be afraid as it was actually happening because at that moment I had done everything I could think of to protect myself.  The rest was out of my control.  I've gotten comfortable with that.

I say do those things because you should get that paralyzing, WTF(apologies to any offended by that) feeling that comes with facing absolute disaster and living to tell about it.  Kind of puts other more trivial things into perspective.  I have learned long ago that the only thing you can control is what you, youself do.  Everything else is out of your control, wrap your head around that and peace of mind will follow. 

-- Edited by biggaRView on Friday 28th of March 2014 09:12:35 AM

-- Edited by biggaRView on Friday 28th of March 2014 10:17:29 AM

biggaRView wrote:

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Trace wrote:

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...I found the story about the overpass very interesting...wouldn't have even occurred to me....

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 Actually, overpasses are very bad places to wait out severe weather, especially when tornadoes are a possibility.  Winds are amplified in the space under bridges. Horizontal flying debris is your worst nightmare during tornadoes.  If you are caught out in the open on roads and the threat is very close, you are better off pulling over and get yourself and family into a ditch.  Better wet and alive than picked up and tossed a 1/4 mile into a field like the Weather Channel crew was last year in Oklahoma. Ideally, you paid attention to the forecast and made better plans than to tempt fate in the first place.

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I was going to wish this forum had a way of "quoting" more than one comment from different users, but biggaRView's post is good enough.

One wants to avoid overpasses during tornadoes.  Back some years ago, Oklahoma City had some folks killed simply because they got under the overpasses and climbed up to get right under the bridge at each end.  Personally, I'll take hail damage any day and be glad for it instead of dying for a foolish decision.

Here in Oklahoma, we even get extremely aggravated at the folks that decide that even during a hailstorm of taking shelter under the overpasses.  That is because they don't just stop on the shoulder.  Others stop to protect their cars and end up blocking the entire highway, leaving everyone vulnerable should the storm produce a tornado.  In fact, if we are on a freeway or turnpike, we prefer to get off the 4 lane roads and seek out two lane side roads to take so we can avoid overpasses.

If one is in an area where one can get the local TV stations on their rooftop antenna, by all means be prepared to watch TV to see what the weather is doing.  Once arriving at an RV park, before you leave the office from checking in, make sure you know where the nearest storm shelter would be located.  Then, try to look at something like google maps or an atlas for that area to get a sense of where the RV park is in relationship to other places in the area.  That way, if the TV stations mention a location, you might have a better idea of where the storm is located.

If you are out in the open, the advice above about ditches is good information if nothing else is available.  However, be prepared to lie flat on the ground with your head being upslope from the rest of your body.  That way, if water happens to run down the ditch, one can still crawl up the slope and keep one's head out of the water.

If one is further out west in New Mexico and Arizona, never take shelter in gullies.  Those can be prone to a flash flood, even though one might not be right in the immediate storm area.  That is the same reason why slot canyons are not good places to be if rain storms are predicted in the "upstream" watershed leading to those canyons.

Terry

Maybe not here on RV Dreams, but I do know of some folks that were flooded and had to leave their RV's when evacuating.  They might have had to do some minor repairs afterwards, but their RV's weren't destroyed.

I would suggest that if it is during a season of heavier rains, that one look for places that aren't right on a stream or river.  If one's only choice of an RV park or campground is close to a stream, at least try to find an individual site that is on higher ground.  When entering an area of interest, keep in mind where high ground is, just in case one has to stop before actually getting out of a flood area.  In other words, would the road used for leaving have a high section with low sections before or after that would put one next to the river as one is leaving.

However, keep in mind that rivers and streams do wild things when flooding.  Jo and I have a friend (actually, he is one of her co-workers) that "HAD" a cabin on one of the rivers up in Northern Colorado.  During last years flooding, the stream/river "shifted" its banks and now runs right where their cabin was located.  They are going up this year to see if anything of their property is salvageable and might be able to rebuild.

Keep in mind that two things are major factors in flooding.  How far is one "down-river," meaning how much watershed to the river is upstream where a lot of water can be collected to run into that river.  With regards to canyons, they can be forced to funnel a lot of water downriver in a much smaller space, making for flash floods.

Terry

WestWardHo wrote:

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... that supertyphoon would be my worst nightmare!.....
Sherry

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 Let me tell you, watching the front of the ship diving into a wall of water 90 feet high will definitely scare the living daylights out of you the first time you see it. You feel a bit better when the ship breeches the other side but then there is nothing but sky for a couple of seconds then here comes the next wave(err wall of water).  The wind makes an evil sound at that speed too!

After the storm, we pulled into Guam for disaster relief.  It had been stripped bare. A tropical island without a leaf or blade of grass anywhere. Place looked like it had been hit with an atom bomb. 

NWescapee wrote:

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Phil & Rudee (WorkinRVer's) can share their flooding story and their evacuation leaving their RV behind.

We were fortunate last September when we were in Colorado with all the flooding that occurred there, we were told to evacuate our campground and given an hour. We packed up in record time and even had time to dump our tanks, our biggest mistake was forgetting that our fresh water tank was low. Not knowing where to go because more of the roads were closed or partially closed or were allowing only local resident traffic we ended up at slightly higher ground in a Target parking lot overnight.

Lesson learned - pay more attention to the local forecasters vs. just checking online websites with weather forecasts.

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 I am adding that to my lessons learned section on my blog :)  Great tip

The Bear II wrote:

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We actually like RVing in bad weather. Keep in mind in Southern California our bad weather most of you would consider good weather...LOL.

If we plan a trip and discover the weather is going to be bad....heavy rain and wind, lightning we still go. We love sitting inside the RV with all of the blinds up watching the rain and light show. It's rare that we have to worry about tornado or winds bad enough to tip over the 5th wheel.

Turn the electric fireplace on, curl up in the recliner and read a good book or watch an old movie. I'd rather do this in the RV than at home.

Favorite storm memory... we were camped on a 10ft high bluff above the beach, we watched as a storm blew in from over the Channel Islands in the Pacific. Lightning was striking the islands. The wind picked up and so did the wave action. Light rain turned to heavy rain and the lightning struck nearby several times as the storm blew over. Not another RV was parked in the campground. We went to bed listening to the rain and woke up the next morning to very clear and beautiful skies.

It was funny when I stepped outside of our rig, 4 other RVs were parked as close as possible to us. It was if they huddled with us over night due to the storm. They all left as soon as the sun came up.

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 That's cool Bear...they must have figured you knew what you were doing...great example of Attitude being the difference between and ordeal and an adventure :)