did<\/em> look low. \u00a0 \u00a0 So I checked it with my digital gauge. \u00a0 Yep, 32 psi when it should have been at least 60 psi.<\/p>\nSo I started my relationship with the Doran 360RV by owing it an apology. \u00a0 It was right to be alarmed about the state of that tire.<\/p>\n
“Bob,” a motorhome owner who was parked next to us, lent me his air compressor and a power connection to his generator. (I do have a 12v compressor but it is rather slow.) \u00a0 I pumped all the tires up to exactly 65 psi, and then checked the suspicious one for what I knew had to be there.<\/p>\n
And there it was: a screw, deeply embedded in the tread, right on the edge of the sidewall where it can’t be patched. \u00a0 Another $150 tire gone. \u00a0 That’s the fifth tire this year, and it’s only May.<\/p>\n
So let me just get this off my chest now. \u00a0 ALL YOU PEOPLE WITH SCREWS: PLEASE KEEP THEM OFF THE ROADS!<\/p>\n
This was the first near-miss. \u00a0 I say that because if I hadn’t been installing the Doran 360RV, I probably would not have noticed that tire until later, and it could have shredded on the road. \u00a0 Did I need further evidence that we needed a tire pressure monitor?<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Eleanor came out to say there was a tornado warning for the area. \u00a0 I watched the radar loop on TV and the weatherman was talking about three “hook echoes” in the radar. \u00a0 Hook echoes are the signature of tornados. \u00a0 Tornados make RVs and virtually everything else go flying. \u00a0 Plus, the storms had the potential for 65 MPH winds and nickel-sized hail. \u00a0 I wanted to drive away, but trapped between a line of heavy thunderstorms and the coast, we had no place to go.<\/p>\n
So I came to the conclusion that we needed to evacuate the Airstream for the safety of the concrete block Wal-Mart. \u00a0 We packed up the dinner we were about to eat, grabbed our rain jackets, and went inside. I also took the precaution of shutting off the propane at the tanks, in case the worst-case scenario happened.<\/p>\n
Now, if I had thought about it some more, I would have taken a couple of other things, too. \u00a0 Our walkie-talkies would have been handy if we were separated. Our cell phones worked but the cell phone tower was right next to the Airstream, so if one went, the other probably would too. \u00a0 I also would have grabbed a flashlight, in case the power went out in the Wal-Mart.<\/p>\n
This was our second near-miss. \u00a0 For about 20 minutes, we had just rain and a spectacular lightning show. \u00a0 Eleanor wandered into the store to ask about tires, and then suddenly, “it” hit. \u00a0 The parking lot disappeared in black rain, the windows began to shake, and I heard a rumble like a freight train. \u00a0 I remembered that people often describe the arrival of a tornado sounding like that. \u00a0 I grabbed Emma by the jacket and we went to a spot I’d previously picked out inside the store, where two cinder-block walls formed an L and where there were tables to duck under.<\/p>\n
I have to admit that it was terrifying for a minute or two. People were starting to panic, while others were obliviously trying to exit the store into the vortex. \u00a0 We heard several loud bangs, and then the sliding doors in front of the store blew outward. \u00a0 The managers secured the doors and locked them while we hung back in our safe spot wondering if it was time to duck under the table yet.<\/p>\n
I was worried about Bob and his wife, parked out there by our Airstream, but in the midst of this, I saw Bob fire up his motorhome and drive over to Lowes. He parked under their pick-up area’s awning, safe from hail and mostly in the lee of the wind.<\/p>\n
When it was over, I surveyed the parking lot. \u00a0 A lot of carts got loose and damaged cars, but the worst happened to a different motorhome parked about 300 yards from \u00a0 our Airstream. \u00a0 It was blown over, and slid down a shallow embankment to come to rest in the Lowes parking lot. \u00a0 When I got there the police were already on the scene and the occupants had exited by breaking through the windshield.<\/p>\n
I’m pretty sure they got hit by at least a strong downburst, if not a bit of tornadic activity. \u00a0 The motorhome was facing into the prevailing wind, whereas the Airstream got it directly broadside. \u00a0 The Airstream survived just fine (as far as I can tell in the dark), but the motorhome took it hard. \u00a0 Was it the aerodynamic advantage of the Airstream, or just luck?<\/p>\n
Tomorrow we will recover from all of this. I’ll go shopping for a tire and install it on the trailer, and inspect the Airstream for damage on the windward side. \u00a0 With luck it will be a bright sunny day and this little nightmare will be behind us. \u00a0 But two near-misses in one day … it makes me think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We had two near-misses today. We stopped at the Wal-Mart in Morehead City, NC, because our ferry reservation from Cedar Key to Ocracoke is for 2:00 pm on Monday. \u00a0 \u00a0 Nothing to do for a few hours but hang out, which I was really looking forward to after driving about 280 miles from Santee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,14,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}