High Winds and a Brown-out

18 Dec, 2016; Imperial Dam LTVA; “South Florida Flats”, Yuma AZ

It started out sort of ‘Breezy’ . . .

The forecast was for ‘Breezy’, then ‘windy’. As the day progressed, the dust filled the air and soon the mountains and even the farthest row of trailers were lost behind the wall of brown dust.  The wind kept getting stronger – I checked the stakes on the Paha Que and then checked the owners manual – it should be OK in the winds that are forecasted.  I’d hate to have to go through all the steps to take it down in this wind!  I did take down the sun-blocker screen to reduce the wind resistance.

I moved the car to act as a wind break – then went over to the neighbors to watch the sunset and share a fire.  We took the wind as long as we could, but it was a short evening. 

As I approached the trailer, I saw that the Paha Que had wrapped itself around the trailer!  The wind was so strong that I couldn’t move it away from the door far enough to get in.  I didn’t have a flashlight or access to any tools.  Slowly, I managed to get part of the Paha Que untethered – enough so that I could squeeze into the trailer and get a flashlight and some tools.  The wind was really ripping – which made it quite the adventure getting the awning dismantled and jammed into the car.  One of the cross-bars had bent under a gust of wind allowing the whole thing to collapse and glue itself to the side of the trailer. 

I should have known better and taken it down when the wind first kicked up!  I didn’t sleep well that night – the trailer was really rocking-and-rolling!  The next day I realized I wasn’t the only one to delay taking something down. My neighbor to the East lost their screen tent.

No wonder the landscape is so barren – these winds must take just about everything down!!  The winds were only gusting to about 30mph – I guess I was lucky.  One of my neighbors said his weather center recorded steady 50mph winds gusting to 75mph last year (don’t know what I’d do in that kind of wind – 30 was scary enough!)


The skies are finally clearing – but there is a fine grit throughout the trailer – I remember this from sandstorms in west Texas when I was a kid.  We’d clean for days to get the sand that had filtered into the house off the surfaces.  My lungs feel a bit clogged up and my cough is back – nothing like breathing dirt for several days!

Still a little windy a couple days later - but the sunset was lovely