wind and my Casita

[yyyyyguy]

Sitting here in Kansas waiting out a storm and as I backed onto my pad I noticed these chains embeded in the cement. Seems they're for tying down the camper so it won't blow away with me in it! Sooooo, at what mph winds do have to start worrying that i'll just roll back to Wisconsin?!?!

[steve dunham]

We're experiencing strong winds with gusts up to 40 MPH here in Northern Wisconsin .So when you get home to Wisconsin you may just get blown back to the land of Dorothy.

[Iowa Dave]

[QUOTE=yyyyyguy;577729]Sitting here in Kansas waiting out a storm and as I backed onto my pad I noticed these chains embeded in the cement. Seems they're for tying down the camper so it won't blow away with me in it! Sooooo, at what mph winds do have to start worrying that i'll just roll back to Wisconsin?!?![/QUOTE
While I don't know the answer to your question, I would
1. Chain down
2. Take a picture of the chained down rig
3. Pull the picture out any time a camper discussion turns to camping in the wind and one up any lightweights who could only claim a rock a bye baby wind.
Dave

[ZachO]

I wish I had known the speed of the winds I was in last spring...But I'll say that they grabbed my portable solar panels and tore them off my battery, blew over the frame of my sun shade (I had taken the tarp off of it because of the wind, thinking that just the bare bones of the frame wouldn't catch the wind...), and it was rocking my camper to the point that I seriously started to worry that I was going to blow over. Not in a paranoid way or funny way...I really started to think I might get blown over.

I think at that point we were talking over 60mph sustained gusts. I don't want to exaggerate so I'm hesitant to say it...but I feel like I heard that there had been 80-90mph gusts that night when I was in town (Moab) the next morning.

Didn't blow me over. But that was a small RV so the extra weight of the truck may have helped.

[yyyyyguy]

Picture taken, if nothing else I'll show it to My insurance company.

[Raz]

I've seen wind shelters and tornado/ bad weather instructions, but Ive never seen or heard of a campground providing tie down chains. Is this a public or private campground?

[Iowa Dave]

Good thought. I've seen a couple fold downs rolled by straight line winds
in Iowa while camped near Des
Moines years ago. If there are any trees nearby assess them for
Widow makers too.
Dave

[yyyyyguy]

Originally Posted by Raz

I've seen wind shelters and tornado/ bad weather instructions, but Ive never seen or heard of a campground providing tie down chains. Is this a public or private campground?

Kansas state park at Glen Elder, great place with a wonderful lake......with no fish...that wanted me to catch them.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by yyyyyguy

Kansas state park at Glen Elder, great place with a wonderful lake......with no fish...that wanted me to catch them.

Yeah, I run into that a lot. Hunker down and stay safe. Raz

[Hazel in Sk]

Hubby and I both thought we were likely to get blown over a couple of years back at Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan. The wind was humungous with nothing but grass to slow it down. We both regretted deciding to camp in such an isolated area when no one else was there - not even parkstaff.

[gordon2]

And here I thought the chains were an anti-theft device.

[Borrego Dave]

Good question Pete. My Casita is in the driveway and we've had two days of 40-50 mph winds that hit it pretty much straight on and it hasn't moved but I do have the wheels chocked front and rear and tied to the rims. I also have a 19' Terry sticky that was parked in the same place a few years ago, wheels chocked only in front because of a 3* driveway down slope. Wind kicked up one night over 50+. Never gave the trailer a thought....it's 1K heavier than the Casita. Was really surprised to find it pushed 5 feet back and almost against the garage door . Remember the tying the chocks on ???
I drew up plans for my Casita trailerport with corner tie downs in the concrete.
When we boondock I always park with one end towards the prevailing wind direction.

[Ruth C.]

Would it make any difference to keep the tongue on its wheel vs. on a block? Maybe with the wheel turned into prevailing winds? It might just spin the trailer rather than blow it over.

[ZachO]

Depends on how you're oriented against the wind. If it's a full on side blast I'm not sure it would matter.

I think other than in true hurricane or tornado winds, getting blown over is just kind of a fluke. If the right gust comes along at the right angle, and really grabs your trailer just right, it's just going to flip it. But it's kind of a perfect storm of conditions to make that possible.

[Tom Cantrell]

Say "Hi" to Dorothy and Toto!

[yyyyyguy]

Phew.....made it through the night...only 55mph winds but I got pix and by the time most people see my camper with tie-downs the wind speed will certainly be near 100 mph...I have a very bad memory..."old-timers" you know...

[Mike Magee]

A wind speed of approximately 73.14159 mph.

[Gilda]

One year high winds in the Boston area caused a maple tree on our street to fall on our house while we were inside watching it fall! Fortunately, there was no damage to the house or to us.

A couple years ago we were camping in Joshua Tree National Park in California and the night winds were fierce! The trailer was a rockin', the tent campers disappeared in the night (They drove home, I'm sure. They did not blow away.) and our camping chair had burned to a crisp as it had fallen in the firepit ashes. Thank goodness we were in the 13' Scamp. I kept my thoughts on the escape hatch all night in case we might need it. We felt a lot of rocking and howling, but we survived intact and stayed upright.

[KenjiFox]

My Scamp has been through two tornadoes while I have owned it.
The first one was the most severe, and I wasn't home to see it. The scamp was in my driveway at the time, not sure if there where any chocks under the wheels, but I doubt it. The stabilizers and tongue jack were down tightly. I have stabilizer jacks on all four corners so that's a pretty solid connection to the concrete.
I was almost unable to get home that night since almost every path was blocked by fallen oak trees. I had to drive over and barely under so many fallen power lines / through so many piles of roof and other debris. I was not sure if the house would be there at all, let alone the scamp. Somehow we were lucky and our home suffered no damage at all. The scamp was absolutely covered leaf camo style with twigs and leaves. The insane part is that about 60 feet away directly across from our driveway the neighbors huge tree had uprooted and fallen over, lifting about half of their yard with it. Other trees snapped clean off right next to that one. Our entire area looks barren and messed up now. No more tree skyline. One of the Oaks fell right through a house and cut it clean in half. It has since been demolished and re-built.

I think if it had been a typical stick built trailer with flat walls and sharp corners it would have blown away. The wind doesn't toss these nearly as hard.

For the second tornado I was IN the scamp on the side of the house. It was very loud, but it didn't really rock the trailer much. It been sitting still for almost a year in that position and had sunk into the dirt a good 4 inches. The tornado also didn't cause any damage in our area that time.

[honda03842]

In our FL park if you leave your rig over the summer, it must be tied down to the pad. The summer thru November is hurricane season. During Hurricane Charlie (2004?) rigs that were not tied down were blown all over the place. Actually an open chain link fence set in concrete was blown over.