The great Ice Storm of 2013 was nearing. Of course at the time, we didn’t know it was the great Ice Storm of 2013. The forecast called for a chance of sleet and freezing rain, and some cold temperatures. Rare for Texas, but not completely unheard of.
Being our first winter in the RV, we were not all that comfortable with winter yet. Would the pipes freeze? How will this affect the waste water system? Will the heaters work well? What unforeseen problems might we encounter? The list of concerns goes on.
We were running a bit low on propane. So that’s an easy fix. The RV Park has propane service up at the front, we just have to drive the 100 yards and get it. No problem! I came home early from work the day (Wednesday) before the bad weather was expected. We packed up the loose stuff, strapped down the furniture, pulled in the slides, got the engine started, disconnected shore power, water and sewer hoses, and lowered the TV antenna. I aired up the suspension and lastly went to the command console and retracted the leveling jacks.
Then is started. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. There were yellow warning LED’s blinking on the jack console. I went outside and peeked underneath the coach. The front jacks were up. The rear jacks were not. Great. I told the console to retract the jacks again. BEEP, BEEP. Switched the console to manual. Pressed the button to raise the jacks. Went back outside, the left one had come up, the right one was still down. I worked on this until it got dark, and the RV Park closed the service desk. No luck. That jack was stuck down. The RV can’t move. With the error condition on the console, the other jacks would not come back down either.
So we hooked up the power, water, and sewer. Put the slides back out, placed all the dishes and furniture back in their spots. Of course with the jacks not working, the RV is now pretty wobbly and has a distinct leftward tilt. Great…
I called an RV service company to try to get them out to fix the jack ASAP. After all it was still 24 hours before weather was expected. The quickest I could get somebody out was Friday. The storm was due Thursday night. The service tech said he could make it even if it got bad. Appointment was made for Friday morning.
We decided we should get an electric space heater to help warm the RV just in case we ran out of propane. So we went off to the store. We got a nice ceramic heater from Lowe’s for a reasonable price.
Kathy went Thursday morning and got food and supplies. We were all set. It was already getting cold, so Kathy had the new electric heater plugged in and was using it for heat. She was making some toast for a sandwich for lunch, when the toaster + heater became too much. The power went out on the entire right side of the RV. She called me at work for help. I had her check the breakers and they were not tripped. I had her check all the GFCI plugs. They were not tripped. That’s just weird. When I got home, I had my volt meter and screwdrivers. I pulled all the plugs apart, measured for current, and tried everything I could think of. No juice on the right half of the RV. This also means we had no Internet or computers. We had no TV in the living room. We had no power in the bathroom. We had no TV in the bedroom. And it started sleeting outside and the temperature was plummeting.
We moved the electric heater to the left side of the RV. We didn’t plug in anything else, because we didn’t want to lose power there too. I went and got a small inverter out of my car. I plugged it into the cigarette power adapter inside the RV and moved the Wi-Fi & Internet to that. We now had Internet again. Still no TV and this is the big college football weekend with all the conference championships being played.
Using the hair dryer to thaw the door handle
The big storm hit that night. The sleet and ice made a lot of noise as it hit the roof. By morning, we could tell this wasn’t just a regular weather event. We couldn’t see out of the windows, as they were iced over. We couldn’t open the door as it was iced shut. I got an extension cord and hooked up Kathy’s hair dryer. I worked on the door knob for about 15 minutes and got it to at least unlock. I still can’t turn the knob or open the door. Right next to the door is a window. It won’t open either. I start warming the window with the hair dryer. After 10 minutes or so, I can slide open the window. There is a sheet of ice still there. I push the ice and it breaks and falls away. Yeah! I then reach outside with the hair dryer and start thawing the door knob from the outside. A few minutes later it turns and with a couple hundred pounds of body weight slammed again the door I have it open. I spend the next 20 minutes chipping the ice away from the door to keep it working smoothly.
I got another extension cord out of the cargo hold and rigged up power to get a TV back online. Woohoo it works! I have TV just in time for the football games! The joy didn’t last long. Apparently when we packed everything up to try to get propane, afterwards I didn’t put the TV antenna back up. It’s now frozen in the down position under 2 inches of ice. Crap. No football.
We made it through the 4 days we were stuck inside the RV. I can’t remember the last time it was so cold for so long. Maybe back in 1978? I don’t think I have ever seen ice so thick. Just solid on the ground and with no give at all. We managed to keep the fresh water supply flowing, as well as sewer by using all of our holding tanks. We used the propane sparingly to keep the cold edge off. One morning it got down to 43° in the living room. The bedroom stayed about 55°-60° with the space heater. The cats had their heating pads off because of the power outage, so they snuggled all over us to stay warm.
I streamed some football games off my iPhone to my Apple TV. It was fuzzy, grainy and stopped a lot, but we could at least follow the games. We were able to witness the Alabama vs Auburn game and that historic run back to end the game. We had plenty of food and drink. We used our iPads for Internet access and Facebook.
The RV service guy finally showed after two weeks to get the stuck jack up. He didn’t fix it, only removed it so we could move. He also couldn’t fix the electric. I won’t be using him again. Only then were we able to finally get propane. The RV actually went to the shop for maintenance in January. It was then that the power was restored to the right side of the RV. So we did without power for a month. Crazy.
The Great Ice Storm of 2013 is now just a memory. A memory of a grand adventure in RV living.