Dryer, tornado warning - Yr 1, Day 195

Hardeeville, SC (near Savannah, GA)

Started the day with Mitch finding the problem with our dryer and fixing it.  It hasn't been drying very efficiently at all.  In addition to the normal clothing wash, I also had to wash sheets and a few pairs of pants, which take a lot of drying time.  We were prepared to dry them at the laundry machines on the other side of  campground.  But then we both had a thought:  although we cleaned the lint trap and behind it inside the dryer, what about where the exhaust comes out?  Is it possible some critters made a nest there and it's clogging the vent?  Mitch took a look, and lo and behold, no critter nest but a 3" round and deep plug of lint!  He was unable to remove the cover as he would have needed some kind of caulk to replace it, so he used a jeweler's screwdriver and a portable vacuum - removing it inch by inch.  It took over an hour, but now the dryer works great again!!!  Kudos to my handyman husband.

Then we had some excitement.  We were expecting rain, as the forecast all week has been calling for afternoon thunderstorms.  We didn't expect a tornado warning!   We were in a watch for a while.  There is no place in the campground to seek shelter.  I called the owner and was told the closest place was the fire dept. down the road, but I shouldn't worry as these things always pass by.  This is a very rural area, so the nearest place to civilization is about 25 miles away (where we went shopping on Friday).  We were kind of torn between leaving 2 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit this area and heading to Walmart - at the risk of not knowing whether the single lane roads would be flooded out and we'd be unable to return - or waiting to see if the watch turned into a warning and then running up the road.  We asked our neighbors (who are 20 year full timing veterans) if they were planning to leave and they said they were tracking it and was heading away from us, so they weren't really worried. Well, while trying to make the decision, our weather station started screaming and it had turned into a warning.  We put the weather channel on and then found a local news station broadcasting minute by minute radar and while it looked very scary that it was heading straight for us and there was now no time to seek shelter, it did indeed move in the direction our neighbors said and missed us completely.  In fact, we didn't even get thunderstorms; just some heavy rain that lasted about 10 minutes.

Still, it was scary enough that we really need to have some kind of plan in place for future weather events, especially if the campground doesn't have bath houses (which, when you think about it, really aren't much more secure than a trailer.  In fact, a school or hospital or even Walmart isn't safe if a tornado hits it).  Either way, we are counting our blessings that we were safe.