BCM Community

 Looks like we are going to be hard hit here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland by Irene. Since we are already in the process of moving (gettin' out of the socialist state of MD..... whole 'nother subject), we have things scattered between three different places. Our aim this week has been to get things out of the low lands of Dorchester County to higher ground in De.

Question is, has anyone ever rode out a hurricane in a bus? If so, what was your experience? Would you do it again?

We can leave the shore but I would rather work up to the last minute securing things. We still have a lot to do!   :'(

TOM

Been there, done that, ain't doing it again!
Port St Lucie, fl in a cat 1. VERY scary and see no reason to repete. You have a bus - it moves - ask yourself "is there ANY reason to be in a danger area?" If the answer is anything other that NO then please check in with your closest mental health person!
Take the warnings seriously or you may be with out a bus or worse. Mine is an 40,000 pound Eagle in a cat 1 storm and got damaged about $4K worth -- and it could have been much worse. Get the heck out of there - even 50 miles can make a world of difference.
JimH

I doubt that your bus will blow over but you had better make sure that it is on HIGH ground!!!  Do what busguy says and drive it to safety.

We're following this closely as well. We're in eastern Hamburg, PA and have a concert scheduled for Dover, DE this weekend. Likely, the concert will be cancelled, but east of Hamburg, we're directly in the "extreme" weather potential area. We're currently parked in the woods, and though I like the thought of being sheltered from the wind, I don't relish the thought of some of these old trees coming down on us. So we're thinking of moving into an open parking lot snuggled up next to a large brick and cinder-block building. We'll choose the south side since winds should be strongest out of the north-east. We're probably riding it out in our coach...if you're on the eastern sea-board of MD, you'll get it even worse. More power to you...we're taking this seriously.

Here is the latest update that I get:

Irene is over northwestern Bahamas this AM and will pass well offshore the coast of Florida tonight and early Friday. Irene currently a Category 3 hurricane and will soon reach Category 4 strength. The hurricane is expected to make landfall over the Outer Banks Saturday afternoon or evening as a strong Category 3 or Category 4 storm. The outermost rain bands of Irene will reach the eastern Carolinas Friday. Tropical moisture from Irene interacting with a front could also lead to locally heavy rain across northeastern North Carolina and neighboring Virginia Friday. Flooding concerns will arise throughout easternmost North Carolina as Irene unleashes a total of 4 to 6 inches of rain, with localized amounts to 10 inches, this weekend. After the Outer Banks, Irene will take a path tracking west into New England and closer to New York City. Expected landfall on Long Island and again in Connecticut as a Category 1 hurricane late Sunday or Sunday evening, accompanied by damaging winds and a flooding storm surge. Torrential rainfall will arrive much sooner and overspread the mid-Atlantic prior to the New England landfall, threatening to cause widespread flooding problems. Irene is located about 65 miles east-northeast of Nassau, and about 670 miles south of Cape Hatteras North Carolina, with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, and is tracking northwest at 13 mph. A hurricane warning is in effect for central, and northwestern Bahamas. Irene is large with hurricane force winds extending outward up to 70 miles from the center and tropical force winds extending outward up to 255 miles. Storm surge near center of Irene from 7 to 11 feet accompanied by large waves. Rainfall accumulations of 6 to 12 inches expected in the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

If you wait too long, you may not be able to get out because the evacuation routes will be totally blocked by the thousands of others who waited until the last minute.

In your position, I would do the best I could to secure everything and then head west at least 24 hours before anticipated landfall.

This may well be the worst storm to hit the eastern seaboard in many years, and there are going to be a lot of people who have never experienced anything like it or who have lost their fear of these things.  They will try to rife it out, then panic and try to leave at the last minute.

From the Eastern Shore, you have only three roads out and two of them are bridges that may be closed.

Don't wait.
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I have been in more than my share of hurricanes.  I am forced to stay here at work and ride them out when they come in.  I can't think of any one good reason to stay.  Really not one good reason.  Just remember it is not "That the wind is blowing 100 mph"  it is "What the wind is blowing at 100 MPH".

Ditto wal1809.

As much as I love a good storm,

It's the crap being blown around that is the danger.

The coach can withstand the weather just fine, after all, it  experiences 100 mph winds whenever you drive into a 30-40 mph headwind at highway speeds.

However...

Flying debris is the killer, and the glass smasher, not the rain.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

Tom, you and I have never met.  i think you should get out of the area and ride out the storm in a safer place.  then we can meet and share a cold one.  ;D

Not much time left, so use it wisely to do what you can to protect your property, structures, kill the utilities. but above all follow instructions from local authorities. Once a storm of this magnitude hits your area, it will be out of your hands to do any good there. Save what you can NOW! then save your self, please! I too would like to meet you one day. Be safe! ;)

    Van

Quote from: van on August 25, 2011, 08:00:33 AM
Not much time left, so use it wisely to do what you can to protect your property, structures, kill the utilities. but above all follow instructions from local authorities. Once a storm of this magnitude hits your area, it will be out of your hands to do any good there. Save what you can NOW! then save your self, please! I too would like to meet you one day. Be safe! ;)

   Van

Always take the safe course.  Get outta town and soon if you feel you are in harms way.

Hey Van, you know the difference between a Tornado and a Hurricane?

Me neither.  

But someone is going to lose a trailer.

BCO

What a bunch of pansies I rode out Carla in the 60's in Houston run like hell Tom lol the hurricane is not the problem it is all the tornadoes they spawn you can ride out the wind and rain from a hurricane

good luck

I went thru 5 typhoons, (hurricanes ) in Vietnam. In 4 of them we just caught the edges. The 5th one was dead center. All that was left of 27 helicopters was pieces. Saw an i beam in a hanger that was twisted, looked like somebody just grabbed it in their hands and gave it a quarter turn. Saw rain going by parallel to the ground that never hit the ground where i could see it. I would be leery of hiding behind a block building.....it may come down on you. Best advice i have seen is to get the heck out of Dodge and go as far as you can as soon as you can.  Don't under estimate these things. Good luck, hope you all are ok.

When Rita came here they said by a certain time all the lanes would go contraflow and you would not have a choice in the direction you went. We spent 12hrs in the truck trying to get 83 miles to the lake house. The next day there was not a car on the road but no fuel either. The only valaro that had it would only sell you 5 gallons. People were stealing it out of your car on the highway. It was total chaos. You could not get help from anyone. The next day the roads were empty we could have ran back to the house if we wanted to. The storm turned and came strait over the lake house. The people that leave run in panic early. Then the roads clear. Do not get yourself stuck on an island but don't get caught up in the mayhem. Fill with diesel today because it could be a week or so with no power and fuel. Feel good knowing you can drive 700 miles if needed to get food and fuel if needed. To me the scary part of a hurricane is when people start getting scared and hungry. Keep the shot gun loaded you will be the only one with supplies and a restroom on the highway. It will not be easy for you to weave in and out of traffic to get away. Good luck and be safe.


PS: if you can get a 5 gal bucket of that rain we will take it.

You get 50 miles inland from the eye you are pretty safe that is about as far as ever took my family you get a bunch of rain so stay high 

good luck

Here is a different problem, I am presently in Lakeland ,fl. My bus is in chincoteaque va,  Right along the eastern shore, It sets pretty high up from the bay side and ocean side.   Possible flooding I doubt it way high,  Now the wind . , I called the insurance folks and they assured me it was covered, at least today they say that,  If  i drove up there and moved the bus , there is no way to figure which way the storm will go, So here I set 1,000 mi away,  BUT SAFE............

Actually, you should have already done sosss.  What are you waiting for?  The many reasons why have already been given.   Don't "feel" embarrashed doing sooss....out here in SW Oregon the 3 day wildfire bags are ALWAYS in the back of the cars...just grab and boggie.  "Live Long And Prosper"..."Survive And Succeed" and all that stuff. HB of CJ (old coot) :) :) :)

we, for one are taking your guys' advice (i'm just bumming off this thread) and we cancelled our concert in Dover, Delaware just now. We're staying in Hamburg, PA which I hope is far enough away. More power to you guys in Maryland...it's gonna hit you harder I presume...

Hurricanes are so very unpredictable.  The problem here is the the Atlantic Seaboard has not seen a serious storm in decades and people get complacent.  Depending on the track, if it pushes a lot of water up into Chesapeake Bay or Delaware Bay, there may be some serious flooding.

The winds are not the biggest problem.  It is flooding, storm surge and flying debris that you need to worry about.

Now you guys got me thinking I live on Turkey PT water on 3 sides holding down in North East MD good luck guys Richard

Well getting there to get our bus is impossible its an 18 hr drive, the highways are already packed with evacuees from the Carolina's, the Chesapeake bay bridge tunnel may be closed when we got there, if you go the Baltimore route its an extra 3 hr in regular traffic,  as of midnight Tonite they expect to have a mandatory evacuation started, so you could not get to the bus anyway.yes we could have maybe gone sooner, but that isn't always a choice that can be made, My choice was the safety of my wife and our dog, without those two,  the bus means nothing, so Yes I do expect damage  to the coach, That can be repaired or replaced, So even though sometime it seems a bit childish to not move forward, to run in guns blazing and get the coach to safety, each and everyone of us has life decisions to make, mine is as listed above, See ya all in Arcadia at the rally,

 Scotty!!!! GET OUT of the trees!!!! they will crush the bus! Last spring a wind storm hit TT campground near Cambelltown near Hershey Pa. BIG OLD trees missed RV, not pretty! I live near Carlisle and know sone of your area, Park in an area that's away from falling trees AND powerlines, at the moment I am directly under power lines so Sat. morning moving bus!

Quote from: Ralph7 on August 25, 2011, 04:24:49 PM
Scotty!!!! GET OUT of the trees!!!! they will crush the bus! Last spring a wind storm hit TT campground near Cambelltown near Hershey Pa. BIG OLD trees missed RV, not pretty! I live near Carlisle and know sone of your area, Park in an area that's away from falling trees AND powerlines, at the moment I am directly under power lines so Sat. morning moving bus!

Stink! Are you serious? If there is seriously wind predicted for Hamburg, I'm bummed. We haven't bought and hooked up a pump to our freshwater tank yet. So no water if I move the coach to the open area across the street. Sigh. Such might be our life....generator is ready. Oil level checked. 5 gallon tank full...7.5 gallons of fresh gas in our gas cans ready to go as of today. Car completely fueled up and topped off...Going shopping for some basics tomorrow in case power goes out. Guess I should fill some jugs with water...can use that to wash hands/flush toilet, etc.

There may not be any water anyway. The storm only last 12 to 24 hrs and you will be able to move back to your spot. Be careful coming home. Remember allot of fences will be down because of fallen trees. Watch for freed cows and horses wandering the roads. You don't want to get hung in powerlines across the road. You may see a car in front of you that just drove under some you don't see until the bus is wrapped up in them. Here is a picture of the day after with 110MPH winds 120 miles inland. No tree tops left. If you look just over the little shed you can see the white oak that crushed the back of my neighbor's house.


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Just heard on Facebook  Nick Badame and Nick Sr and family are loaded up and leaving Cape May with Coaches. Safe trip to all.

  If the Bus runs, I cant imagine any other option than to put me and my Family as far away from that kind of horror as soon as possible. Most of the stuff we own is, in the end, just stuff. Thats why we have insurance. Grab your photo albums and most significant memorabilia, and start putting miles under you. Go somewhere where they really dont know what a Hurricane is.

No question! Get Out NOW!!! You have been blessed to have a coach, use it!

  My Aunt and Uncle lived in Panama City FL for more than 40 years. Only a couple Hurricanes came in that way, and they always rode them out because they were mild, and because we didnt have the knowledge and reporting we have today.

  The one time they did decide to leave, they didnt leave early enough and sat in traffic creeping along all day. They only made 50 miles in 10 hours. Had they simply left a few hours earlier, they would have avoided all of that last minute mad rush and put much greater distance between them and the storm.

  If I lived in a Hurricane prone area I would attempt to have the rig ready to roll at all times, so when the warning came I could be the first one out of town, the first one to find the cheap fuel (or any fuel), first one to stock up at the grocery store, etc. I just cant see any reason to stick around. People used to put heavy shutters on their homes, strong heavy shutters that could keep a Bear out, as well as heavy wind and rain. If people were still smart, like their forefathers were, they wouldnt be fighting each other at the lumber yard every year to buy plywood, and they wouldnt be standing around nailing sheets of it on their house while the storm bears down on them. Slam the shutters and lock em, and get out.

Quote from: artvonne on August 26, 2011, 06:32:54 AM
The one time they did decide to leave, they didnt leave early enough and sat in traffic creeping along all day. They only made 50 miles in 10 hours. Had they simply left a few hours earlier, they would have avoided all of that last minute mad rush and put much greater distance between them and the storm.

 

Our youngest boy left Houston (during Katrina) with his family and had the same ordeal, took him over 14 hours to get to Dallas.  He said the following year, all the automotive shops in Houston were either servicing or rebuilding engine components on automobiles that spent long hours on the Interstate idling while stuck in a monumental traffic snarl of weather refugees.

Go figure.

BCO

While all our buses but 1 were down in TX for Hurricane Ike I was at home in NW TN on the KY state line and I tell you what the wind in TN/KY was fierce and did as much "wind" damage in that area as it did in TX. It took about 6 months for "roaming debris crews" hired by FEMA to finally get all the trees cleaned up and hauled off. (emergency crews cut what they had to to clear roads and left the rest for FEMA's workers (as instructed by FEMA)

I was sitting on the front screened in porch of our place talking on the phone to mom & dad and other drivers who were all in TX and several times I got scared enough that the trees folding in half and leaning toward the house were gonna come crashing on down I finally went down to the shop and rode the winds out in the shop where I had a bus over the pit in case I needed to dive in the pit for cover.

I lived in OK for 5 yrs and the winds of Ike all the way up in TN scared me more than any tornado ever did in OK!

SO FWIW please do move your coaches out of harm from falling trees if anyway possible! (It ain't always the "storm" that gets you, but sometimes the aftermath!)
;D  BK  ;D

Has any one decided to stay? Good luck and don't forget the pix ;)

I decided to leave. We stayed on the Shore until this morning early & then got over on the other side.  Just got over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge before they closed it.

TOM

Good news indeed! Stay safe!


      Van

survived the night here in eastern PA. moved the coach to higher ground out of the woods friday. parked in an open parking lot near a picnic pavilion with 30 amps. got about 3 hrs of sleep. coach rocked back and forth worse than we've ever felt it rock. wind gusts were 75 mph here w/sustained 50-60 mph all night. never heard rain hit the roof of the coach all night...it was slamming against the driver's side the entire time. still rough this morning. coach is bouncing as i type this. power blinked 11 times before it's final blink around 3:50 AM. went out into the madness in my swim trunks to get the genset hooked up and fired up. tons and tons of rain...i'd be drier in a pool. the winds squeezed water somehow where it shouldn't be and we have water on the floor in the driver's area. enduring this for another 5-8 hours or so. the eye is 90 miles east of us approx. i'm soaked, cold and currently watching the metal siding rip off of a pole building... :-\ what a life.

Excellent conditions under which to consider the design of systems in the coach.

So many busnuts have to open multiple compartments outside to make things work, or change configurations between shore and on board power sources when the power goes out.

Think: How can I design so that I can manage my systems without going outside?

The boat folks are very clever at this, they don't have a dock to pull alongside out there.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

Automatic transfer switches are priceless as far as convenience IMO, especially in adverse weather conditions. I have a 50A ATS for the genny, and a 30A ATS for the inverter. All I gotta do is push a button. I can do that in my underwear without worrying about the neighbors. ;D

Quote from: thomasinnv on August 28, 2011, 01:49:53 PM
Automatic transfer switches are priceless as far as convenience IMO, especially in adverse weather conditions. I have a 50A ATS for the genny, and a 30A ATS for the inverter. All I gotta do is push a button. I can do that in my underwear without worrying about the neighbors. ;D

Wishlist...a new genny is on it too. Lots of work to get it all set up right. At the present time, everything is cobbled together. I'd love to be able to push a button and be able to switch to genset....or better yet, automatic power failure sensing. anyway, just glad we had one for this storm.

I would never in a thousand years put an auto transfer switch in. Too much opportunity for problems.  I made my manual transfer switch for less than $75 & it switches from inside via one small toggle switch. Works like a charm. I could make the thing switch automatically if needed but don't like that feature.

TOM

Don ................Priceless!
;D  BK  ;D

Quote from: van on August 27, 2011, 06:12:06 AM
Has any one decided to stay? Good luck and don't forget the pix ;)

As wished for. So, the damage wasn't bad, and the wind wasn't earth shattering by any stretch...but when you ride something like this out in your coach, it really is a bit adventurous. Watch through the whole video..the first section is blank because it was dark, no power (genset not running at that point in the video) and I just wanted to capture the audio INSIDE the coach. Mind you, the coach was bouncing around in the wind the whole time...enough to keep us awake. I managed to snatch about 3 hours of sleep on and off:

Hurricane Irene in a Bus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhgkOMLTMGs#)