Several summers ago my wife and I were traveling home from Missouri north on I-35 toward home in the Twin Cities when we were caught in a hellacious thunderstorm. There was rain, wind and of course, hail. We pulled into a gas station near Coulter, IA when it was pouring rain, and parked under a roof at the diesel pumps. Since it was already a horrendous rain, we opted to stay put. It didn't take long for power to go out, as the wind and rain picked up, and it started to hail. We were afraid that we were going to inspect our camper when the storm let up and find the roof hatch broken and a possibly a window broken out as well, in addition to fiberglass damage.
The reports on the radio were a tornado touched down within 2 or 3 miles from where had stopped. A couple of towns were without power and a radio station was off the air. In addition to all of this there was a report that a semi truck had been blown off the freeway and was on its side in the median of I-35; shure enough when we resumed our northward journey there it was! This was one heckuva storm, and we should have stopped sooner or at least gone inside the station even though we would have gotten drenched.
When it was all over, the biggest damage to our
Scamp was to the fins on the outside air conditioner coils; some of them were bent. No
windows were damaged, the fiberglass didn't have any obvious issues, and the roof hatch was completely intact. A while later when I was waxing the trailer I noticed a few teeny-tiny chips in the gelcoat that were probably a result of this storm. With the patina that refuses to be buffed out of our trailer these chips just don't matter.
I guess the point is these campers are tough! Having said that don't do what we did. Stop and wait before you even get close to the storm if you are traveling. If you are in a campground seek shelter in the designated shelter area if heavy weather is approaching.
Stay safe out there!
--Dan Meyer