 and site number easily accessible. Write the RV park name, address, site location and front desk info on a dry erase board or piece of paper somewhere easily accessible in the living space of your RV. If you need to dial 9-1-1 you’ll need that information to get emergency personnel to you as soon as possible. We often leave the campground map out for easy access.
5.) Know what COUNTY you are in. Weather alerts are often issued by county. You should know which county you are currently located in and it doesn’t hurt to know the names of surrounding counties either.
6.) Prepare the outside of your RV or campsite. Reduce the risk of damage by putting away things that can blow around. Retract awnings, retract slides (if applicable), put away chairs or camp kitchens – you don’t want these things slamming into the outside of your RV.
7.) Don’t try and outrun a surprise storm. If you’ve waited too long and/or get caught by a surprise storm – don’t panic and try to hitch up and run. We were foolish early in our journey and did this in South Dakota after getting alerts about a possible hail storm (1 inch hail) headed our way. We hitched up in the dark, in heavy rain and headed out to find shelter under a nearby carwash. Turns out we wouldn’t easily fit in the car wash bay (a few classic cars had beat us to the spots anyway), the hail didn’t end up crossing our path, and we were put ourselves at risk by hitching up in a hurry and rushing to seek shelter. In hindsight it was a stupid choice that was rooted in panic – we won’t do that again. Next time we’ll stay put, seek another shelter if needed, leave the trailer and take the truck, and/or deal with the damage if it happens.
8.) Make sure your insurance is adequate. If your RV is your full-time home do you have adequate insurance to replace it in the event of an emergency? Talk to your insurance agent and make sure you have a full-time policy and that it is sufficient enough to cover your needs. Some policies even include hotel/living expenses if you’re unable to live in your RV due to repairs or replacement. Full-time RV insurance policies don’t always give you the same protection that a homeowners policy does (providing liability insurance while you’re out away from your trailer, for example), so an umbrella policy might be a good idea. Talk to your insurance agent to make sure you’re adequately covered.
9.) You can replace your RV but you can’t replace a life. At the end of the day there are no possessions in your RV that are more important than your life. Seek shelter if needed and worry about property loss later (see #8).
10.) Stay calm. Don’t panic. Have a plan in place and follow through with it calmly. Panic is not your friend.
I’m not a certified weather woman, I’m also not an expert on emergency preparedness – I’m just relaying some of the ways that we work to stay safe on the road. Please practice due diligence and research what emergency tools or apps will best serve your family – remember that your safety is your responsibility.
At the end of the day preparation and planning are your best weapons against any emergency – especially severe weather. We can’t predict all the emergencies we might encounter but we shouldn’t let that keep us from enjoying life on the road. Safe travels to you....
What tips do you have for being safe while traveling in an RV? Please leave a comment and share your favorite severe weather RV tips!
High cost of oil and gas fuels a boom in wood stoves. But what is the cost to climate?
George and Judith Reilly own a big antique house on the main street of Brandon, Vt., a picturesque town on scenic Route 7. The house’s front parlor doubles as a gallery to display the fabric art Judith creates in her upstairs studio.
Last spring, when oil for the house’s furnace began to top $4 per gallon, Mr. Reilly did some quick calculating and decided he could save up to 50 percent on his heating cost this winter by installing a stove that burned sawdust pellets. Over the summer, he placed an order with first one, then another local dealer. But by October, both had failed to find him a stove. Finally, he discovered one on eBay. The only problem: Reilly had to drive his pickup truck from Vermont to Maryland to claim it. Last weekend, as nighttime temperatures dipped below freezing, he was installing his prize, which he hopes will be his main source of heat this winter.
Both traditional and pellet-burning wood stoves are in high demand as cold weather begins to grip the northern United States and Canada. Sales of wood stoves are up 55 percent so far this year over last, according to industry figures. And sales of wood pellet stoves are even hotter: up 135 percent over the same period last year.
But as people polish their stoves and admire their woodpiles, environmentalists and health officials are expressing concern that burning wood in old or poorly designed stoves could add significantly to air pollution. And although wood represents a local and renewable fuel source, its credentials as a “carbon neutral” fuel – not adding to global warming – are hazy at best.
Even the very cleanest-burning and best-maintained wood or pellet stoves release a much higher level of emissions than a typical oil furnace, a common heating fuel in the Northeastern US. Natural gas, the most popular heating fuel nationwide, burns even cleaner than oil.
Wood smoke “is a fairly toxic cocktail,” says Lisa Rector, a senior policy analyst for NESCAUM, a nonprofit group that advises eight Northeastern US states on air-pollution control issues. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), wood smoke contains a number of potent health hazards, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and fine particulates. The American Lung Association estimates that in some locales fireplaces and wood stoves are the source of 80 percent of the fine particulates found in the air.
Judging how polluting a particular wood stove is can be tricky. Since the early 1990s the EPA has mandated that new wood stoves emit no more than 7.5 grams of emissions per hour, though many models have been tested with much lower emissions. Stoves manufactured in the 1970s and ’80s emitted about 42 grams per hour, according to the Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Association (HPBA), which represents wood stove manufacturers.
But how much pollution a stove emits also depends on what is being burned.
“A tree is not a tree is not a tree,” Ms. Rector says. “It is what it lives in.” Trees can pick up substances such as mercury, sulfur, or chlorine from the soil in which they grow. And if the wood is not properly seasoned or wet, combustion will be less complete. (See below.) Not only will the stove give off less heat, it will pollute more.
One concern this winter is that people may decide to fire up an old wood-burning stove. “We’re still getting calls from people who have these 30-year-old [wood stoves] that their uncle gave them,” says Bob Christensen, the owner of En-R-Gy Saver Inc. in Holliston, Mass., which sells six brands of wood and pellet stoves. His stove sales are up about 50 percent this year over last.
The poster child of wood-heat pollution is the outdoor boiler, a wood furnace located in a separate outbuilding that sends hot water through underground pipes to a home or business. Outdoor wood boilers can emit 206 times more pollution than an oil furnace, or about 3,000 to 5,000 times more than a natural gas furnace, Rector says. They are often a source of complaints from neighbors who don’t appreciate being bathed in smoke.
Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have moved to set emissions standards on outdoor boilers. Manufacturers are getting the message, saysDeidra Darsa, a spokeswoman for HPBA. “They have done an incredible job in turning their products around in the last year or so and come up with some very clean-burning products,” she says. The EPA is also engaged with outdoor boiler manufacturers to set up new emissions guidelines.
Because of its pollutants, wood-burning in general is most appropriate “at the urban fringe and beyond,” not in cities, which are already dealing with many other sources of air pollution, says John Gulland, cofounder of woodheat.org, a nonprofit website that aims to offer impartial information about firewood and wood-burning stoves.
Just like oil and gas, wood gives off carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases when burned. But it also offers some carbon-saving benefits that make judging its effects on global warming difficult.
“I like to call it ‘75 percent carbon neutral,’ ” Mr. Gulland says. While wood burning does release carbon dioxide and methane, advocates argue that the trees would do that anyway in the forest as they die, fall over, and decompose.
But only a portion of the CO2 from decomposition enters the atmosphere. Some remains in the soil. Meanwhile, forests absorb carbon dioxide, so maintaining forested areas that are harvested for wood is a carbon plus. And if the wood being burned is scrap from a sawmill, for example, then no additional trees are being felled and no additional carbon created.
The question can quickly get knotty.
• Use a properly installed and vented EPA-certified wood stove.
• Season