Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Tornado?

Wesley Chapel, Florida

We spent most of yesterday trying to get the new truck set up.  We ordered  Weather Tech custom floor mats.  Those are the ones you see advertised on tv and they appear to be very nice. 

We find regular floor mats don’t work well for our life style. We are in too many dirty, sandy areas and always make a mess on the carpet floor mats.

These rubber mats extend every where your feet go, including getting in and out of the vehicle, and behind and beside the pedals.  They are digitally measured to fit your particular vehicle.  The cost was $169 for both front and back. 

floor mats

They have a lip around the sides to keep sand  and dirt from spilling off the mat onto the carpeting.

FloorLiner DigitalFit Product Education Center   WeatherTech.com

Next stop was a topper for the truck bed.  We have one on the old truck, but of course it won’t fit and is the wrong color.   More $$$$$   Steaming mad

We also are internet shopping for a baseplate for the truck to be able to tow, and a drive shaft disconnect.   Yikes…this is getting expensive.  We also have to pay to have our Air Force One braking system moved over to the new truck.  We knew how much all the other items would cost, but this one was a bit of a surprise and is not going to be cheap.

These extra expenses, and hassles are why I had fought to NOT buy a new vehicle.  Al finally won the battle though.   Smile  I am glad to have the larger new truck and driving an automatic is nice, but it’s getting expensive.

The Honda will be ready this morning, and we’ll get it listed on Craig's List.  It should sell easily. 

After running around most of the day, we came home and had a nap until the storm started.

Wow….what a storm.  I got up and told Al we were going to get a bad storm.  He responded that this is just the normal afternoon thunderstorms.

No…it wasn’t.

It got real windy, with a lot of rain and thunder and lightning.  I was getting pretty nervous.

We watched the storm on the radar on my Droid, and we could tell it wouldn’t last too long.   The weather radio went off but there were no tornado warnings.

Our front window sunscreen was blown completely off.  It  is held on with extremely strong heavy duty magnets.  It has never blown off before.   The tire covers blew off, but we expected that.

This is one time, I am glad to be in the newer, un-shaded  section of the campground.  We have young trees that are maybe 20 feet tall, but have small trunks.  If one of them went down, it wouldn’t crush the coach.  The older section has huge beautiful oak trees.

Right across the street from us to the right a large tree branch came down on the park owners fence.  Yesterday morning his new 5th wheel was parked there.  He headed west earlier in the day.

IMG_3931

Right behind that fence, a 91 year old man lived.  A huge tree branch came down on his 5th wheel.  He was uninjured, but pretty shaken up according to his daughter.

IMG_3938

There was no visible damage to the rv, but there were a lot of tree branches covering up the side.

IMG_3939

I don’t know how they are going to get the trailer out of there.  If it’s moved, the branch will probably fall all the way.  His daughter was inside trying to get his insulin and a few personal items.  I was leery about going inside to try to help her. 

Here is David and Sherry’s motor home.  We went over to check on it as soon as we could.   We didn’t see any damage, thankfully.  They sure don’t need any more problems at this time.

IMG_3934

They had been at the hospital all day and were unaware of the storm.  I warned Sherry a few days ago about leaving the awning out when they were gone.  She listened to me and her awning was not damaged.   A lot of others were not so fortunate.

They had a long, hard day at the hospital yesterday and had to find an alternate way home, because of a huge tree that was downed over the road leading to the campground. 

There were small branches all over the place.

IMG_3935

IMG_3940

There were a few smaller trees, and a few Palm trees down in the newer section of the campground.   Nothing like the older section with all the large trees.

We didn’t think there was a tornado.  We only saw some pretty strong winds.  Denis Phillips (our favorite weatherman) said there was 70 mph winds in some areas, but they are saying there were no tornados.

One of the guys we talked to that was in one of the harder hit areas, swears he saw a tornado.  He said the trees were swirling around and he was sure it was a small tornado.

I don’t know, but it was definitely much worse than Florida’s normal summertime afternoon storms.

We’re expecting the same thing today once the afternoon sea breezes start to kick in.  I hope it won’t be so bad.

Another day in paradise??

16 comments:

  1. Glad to hear that you are okay. It definitely is scary when bad storms come up. We have seen awnings get torn off by wind gusts before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow that was some storm. Glad you guys are ok.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So happy to hear you guys are okay. I prefer parking away from trees - but that's just me not because of TV. That was a terrible storm and hopefully today's will be a whole lot quieter.

    I remember when we switched from towing the car to the Avalanche and the costs involved. If I had known ahead of time how much it was going to be, I may have said no.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We were in so many last year while we traveled in the east that we chose to stay west this year. The weather can be frightful, especially in a RV and we are so glad that everyone is okay. Good reporting!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's time to quit worrying about money. When you get to retirement age, you know what you've got and you know how much you got coming in. There's no sense in leaving a large amount behind.

    JC

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glad there was no REAL damage in your area. Saw on TBO.com that the Ampitheater down at state fairgrounds got considerable damage. We've had rains & winds estimated at about 60mph up here in Dillard but no damages that I'm aware of.

    ReplyDelete
  7. that was quite the storm..tossing all the branches around creating havoc!..glad that there were no injuries..just some clean up!..have a good day..hope the weather improves!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Customizing a new vehicle can be costly but it sure does make it better. I like those mats.
    Thanks for checking on our friends Brave. They do have a lot on their plate. I'm so glad that there was no damage to your MH either.
    Syl

    ReplyDelete
  9. We haven't used our awning very much yet. When we were at the Lava Beds we put it out, and as we were getting ready to leave for the day the owner of the park came over and suggested we put it in while we were gone.

    Craig grumbled, he said we have an automatic retractor that was supposed to pull it in if the wind came up, but since we have not really seen it work he would take the awning in.

    Is he really starting to listen to more experienced people? I think he may be tired of my being right.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Of course I care about you two and the storms, but of course also, I was really glad to see that Sherry and David were OK. Thanks for posting that part as well since they are busy with other things right now! Pretty intense winds it seems. Gotta check in with my friend in Ocala now...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for the great pictures of the park Karen. I should have put a link to your more detailed post on my blog today. Actually we didn't even lose our tire covers and our lawn chairs and those little side tables were still sitting up when we got home. Seems like whatever it was just threw leaves, twigs spanish moss and small branch debris around. I didn't see any trees down on this side. Thanks for checking on us. We haven't decided to move yet. Like lightning not striking twice we're hoping the odds are in the park's favor now. :-)

    BTW what's the weather app you use to get the radar maps? I tried weatherbug but the maps aren't very good.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Unless, that is, you guys put the covers back on and set the furniture back up when you came by before we got back. But since you didn't mention it when we saw you, we thought not.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Our girls got us the rubber mats for a Christmas gift. They are wonderful.
    So very happy everyone is safe. What a scare! So glad you were watching the storm warning. I know you couldn't do anything about it but at least you knew what was coming your way. Hope those storms are over for the year.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Glad you guys are o.k. That was one nasty looking storm.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Did you send that storm our way?!?! We got hit Wednesday Evening about 7pm. We are about to pull the plug and move, but it appears the storms are everywhere;o((

    ReplyDelete
  16. We have had those floor mats in our car for several years and they are wonderful. We are always out in the woods, beach, swamp, or somewhere tracking "stuff" back in the car. They save your floor and are very easy to clean. Worth every penny!

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to leave comments. We love to read them! To contact me directly you can send e-mail to rvtravels2@yahoo.com