On 8/10/20, a Derecho wind storm swept through Iowa, Winds in excess of 130mph tore through the state, ripping apart anything in its path. Trees were snapped in half like toothpicks, roofs ripped off houses, and out buildings/farm storage buildings were flattened like tin cans. As I write this, I still have no power as hundreds of power poles were torn down by fallen trees and debris. I was fortunate to only receive minor cosmetic damage to my home and a dent in the hood of my F-350. My large mature trees fell in front and behind the house. My camper, however, is a different story. Several large branches landed on it. One even pierced the roof and stopped when it hit the camper floor.

Camper in there somewhere

Branch through bedroom

Interior damage caused by large branch landing on corner of roof and sidewall. To the right (not pictured), you can see daylight where the wall pulled away from roof line.

I could post dozens more pictures, but you get the idea. Camping season is over for me!

I post this to share my experience of a rare weather event called a Derecho. Others faired far worse than I, some lost their lives. The people of Iowa quickly came together to clean up this disaster. Lineman from around the country flooded our small communities to help restore power. If you are wondering why you haven't heard of this on the news, it's because it wasn't news worthy. Why? Despite the mass destruction, there was a lot of good that happened and that doesn't make the news. No looting or pointing fingers. People came together and cleaned their communities. We shared generators and chainsaws. Helped each other remove debris and patiently waited for the lineman to restore power.

If you were caught up in this storm, feel free to post your experience (granted you have power/internet lol).

 

That must have been a wicked storm to experience. Good luck with the cleanup.

 

Same storm caused a bunch of damage in the Chicago are as well. It was pretty crazy when it rolled through.

 

We had one down here in Southern Illinois in May of 2009 and the aftermath was brutal. I am still cleaning up downed trees from it in hard to get to spaces in the woods. It was difficult to describe to people that 10's of continuous acres were laying completely flat.

 

Not that it helps but it was on both the National news ( CBS ) and my local news . Described it as a Hurricane on land . Best wishes for a quick cleanup and getting the camper fixed or replaced

 

Finally got power yesterday and to my surprise WiFi too! Was staying at my parents, so moved back in and thought I’d check FTE lol I’ll have to look up those news stories, been busy clearing branches. Thanks 06pghescape for letting me know about those.

Update on the camper since it’s a camper forum. Insurance is going to total it. It’s a 2020 so should make out alright. Was able to pull some camera footage of the camper before the battery backup died. Pretty crazy to watch. Especially the branch that fell straight down through the roof. Here is a still shot.

 

Wow, glad you came out of it okay. Glad nobody was in the trailer at the time.

 

In an effort to find a silver lining, I'm impressed that those winds didn't blow the trailer over. I've always wondered how stable these trailers are in the wind, when not moving. Did you have the stabilizer jacks down?

 

Looks like he had stabilizer trees around it.

Kidding aside, it looks like trees broke from overall wind all the way up the tree and perhaps down low at the trailer's level some of the wind was blocked by vegetation.

From what I can tell in the pics at least.

 

To add to my earlier post, the derecho we had back in '09 places in the woods on my farm looked like 6 D9's lined up blade to blade and just went straight through the timber out on my farm.. At the time I lived in town and watched about a 20' tall Bradford Pear roll down the street like a tumbleweed root ball and everything.
The trees shattered due to leverage mainly. If your ground had been fairly wet before the storm they likely would have come over rootball and everything... which leads me to my next tip. When you go cleaning up that storm damage and start cutting them up WATCH OUT for root ***** that are standing out of the ground, when you start cutting the tree they can lay back down in that hole so fast you'll wonder what happened, they could also flip on over towards the trunk when you cut the trunk off (thats an easier precaution to take by leaving 6-8' of the trunk attached to the stump *if it tips toward the trunk it has a crutch, it it flops back in the hole you have a 6-8' stump to cut flush).

 

I had the front two stabilizer jacks down and thank God I did! A branch fell against the power tongue jack and powered it up. It then remained on, thus burning up the jack motor. I had to manually lower it back down.


You can see it hovering in the air

Trees in my yard snapped 25-30ft up leaving a bare trunk. Neighbors across the street lost the whole tree from the roots up. Caught that on video too, just laid it over slowly.

 

Didn't do much of anything here in Elkhart. Blew and rained pretty hard for 15-20 minutes and then it was fine.

 

depends how the trailer is aligned with the wind but I would guess sustained winds of 60-70 mph hitting the smaller ones broadside would send them over.

 

Sounds like great advice!