What a night

Well, we made it! 3 nights ago campming by Kingston Ontario we were 30 feet from lake Ontario and had winds upward of 170 km/hr for 4 hours from midnight till 4 am. That was the worst I personally have ever experienced up here in Canada or anywhere for that matter. I parked the Dodge about 15 feet from the water to take or deflect some of the wind hitting the camper on the direct side. It was the first time camping the the park wardens actually made personal visits to all the 350 sites to warm everyone of what was coming and give us the chance to leave and come back in the morning? WELL This is Canada we don't get storms in Ontario that could be that bad....well thee was times I was thinking that I sure wished the winds dyed down about 30kts. But in the morning all the tenters were in there vehicles with their tents far away or wrapped around trees. 4 hydro poles were cut off at 15 feet and about 100 trees complete with roots and ground were also knocked over about 1/2 mile away. Sooo the next time we are warned, we are leaving the Wildcat there and high tailing it out of there and IF we need insurance to look after the remains so be it.

WOW! Glad to hear you came through all that ok. Were you broadside to the wind or end to end? I would guess winds that high are going to rock your world no matter which way you are facing.

We were broadside to the wind as that was the best view when we arrived, nothing better than a water view. Good thing I put the tandem tire locks on as well...I think? But with those winds who knows if that helped at all. I guess looking back on it the personal visit by the "yogi" should have been an indication of YES it will be bad. We get storms up here but NOTHING like that EVER. Thanks to the big guy above that no one in the area got hurt at all, just damage to property and alot of coolers and bbq's tipped over.

Glad to hear you all are safe, it could have been really bad....

Sounds like a terrifying experience! Glad you are okay.

Tater

Wow Gus...4 hours of that...

last july we were in a bad summer monsoon at Wahweep CG on Lake Powell...the monsoons came early this year...after seven years of going to that campround I finally got to expirience one...I had been warned about them many times...

It was crazy feels like a herd of sumo wrestlers are ganging up on your camper doesn't it...

the worst of that storm passed in about 40 minutes...4 hours...No thanks!

Yeh 4 hours, at one point my wife pokes me and says "how heavy is the truck" ? I told her about 7000lbs, then she asks me how heavy are we right now? I say about 10500lbs, then she says are we safer in the truck?.....she had me at that one? With the wind hitting us broadside with that much area exposed, vs something lighter? I didn't know what to say but, "if the wind flips us over don't we want to go for the ride" were covered? (I am somewhat of a smarta$$ at times)...thank heavens the rain stopped shortly after that to give us a sence of security and it wasn't as loud in the trailer anymore. Looking back I guess we could have heard that enevitable "freight train" noise that tornadoes bring, this was only a F1 in our area but a F3 touched down about 100 miles away. Like I kept saying to myself THIS IS CANADA ISN'T IT?

You had straight line winds of 105mph!!! My DW would of been balled up in a corner trembling.Glad to hear you made it out of that unscathed.

Tracker16 wrote:You had straight line winds of 105mph!!! My DW would of been balled up in a corner trembling.Glad to hear you made it out of that unscathed.

When I lived in Ft Collins, I experienced early spring winds (Chinook) that would blow down the front range with that kind of velocity. If yur shed wasn't bolted down, you could find it in the next county!! And the hardware stores stayed stocked up on garbage and yard waste barrels, cuz you'd never find yours again.

Glad to know you survived something like that.

TC

Yip 100 mile and hour buffered a bit by the truck, after it was over I had to tighten all the screws on our max air vents, that was it! They really started rattling and I thought we were going to loose the front bunk one, had a table behind the unit with some small Coke bottles and they didn't even move! Figure that out.

GustheUsher wrote:Yip 100 mile and hour buffered a bit by the truck, after it was over I had to tighten all the screws on our max air vents, that was it! They really started rattling and I thought we were going to loose the front bunk one, had a table behind the unit with some small Coke bottles and they didn't even move! Figure that out.

Adding "windbreaker" to the Wildcat's résumé will NOT raise it's resale value.

TC

Good one:cheers:

Out of curiosity, could you have repositioned the camper so that the wind was hitting the nose? I am just trying to figure out what I would have done in this situation and I think I would hook to the truck and pull nose into the wind if it was an option.

Glad you made it out ok.

I don't think I could have, if I would have known which way the wind was truely going to hit I would have but when we got there I put it so the back end was into the wind when we got there, which was about 90 degress to where the big wind hit. When the wind was really blowing I didn't wasnt to take my wheel stabilizers off or take away any anchour points being the front and back stabilizers that were down, I did think of repositioning it like you mentioned but by hitching up again, I would have only had the wheels on the ground and the pivoting hitch as an anchor which made me feel REAL unconfortable. I figured 4 wheels and 4 stabilizers and tire stabilizers would be better that 4 wheels and my pivoting hitch.