Soaked in the Florida Keys
Towards the end of playing tourist and paparazzi in Key West tonight, I heard thunderstorms off in the distance. For the last few days I've seen signs of thunderstorms nearby but the nature of the keys – small, very flat islands – makes it hard to tell how close a storm is and whether it's going to hit the next island over and miss you completely or the other way around.
When I left for Key West tonight at 6pm the sky was clear, blue, hot and sunny. I had no idea what was coming.
I left Key West just before 11pm and was about 35-45 minutes away from my camp at Bahia Honda. As I left and pointed the car north/northeast I saw flashes of heat lightning in the distance. I started thinking about the need to get back to camp in case the storm hits, but driving on US1 in the Florida Keys doesn't lend itself to going fast.
Twenty minutes into the drive the rain started as a light trickle, then a shower. The lightning wasn't heat lightning anymore but spikes hitting the ground in the distance. And then something opened the floodgates and the rain came down with a volume that I hadn't experienced in a long time. I put the car in fourth gear to get better traction on the road, turned the wipers on full and turned the radio off so I could concentrate. In the next few minutes visibility went to almost nothing and my headlights were illuminating so many heavy rain drops in front of me that it reminded me of driving through a blizzard in Omaha Nebraska a couple years earlier.
I managed to stay on the road by following the brake lights of the trunk in front of me. As they slowed down, I followed their lead. Two or three of us pushed on for a couple miles until they'd had enough and pulled off, put their hazard lights on and decided to wait it out.
But I couldn't do this because I knew I had left my tent unprepared for rain and my camping gear – sleeping bag, pillow, air mattress, some books and personal supplies – were all inside getting wet.
So I stayed on the road driving as fast as I could. As I drove over bridges linking the smaller keys together I could feel the easterly pull of strong storm winds pushing the car towards the edge of the road. I did my best to relax my eyes to let them take in as much light as possible so I could focus on finding and staying within the lines on the road. My fears were being blown into the side by the wind or hitting another car head on.
Finally I found myself pushing forward over a bridge I recognized as the modern highway bridge west of Bahia Honda. I looked down and recognized the lights of the campground through the heavy rain still pounding down. Occasional thunder cracked to my west but didn't seem to be on top of me.
I took a right of US1 into the state park and two more rights to get to my campsite where I pulled the car up so the headlights were facing my tent, hit the high beams and jumped out to deal with the damage.
The 'rainfly' that normally keeps wind and rain out of my tent wasn't zipped up so rain had entered in from two sides. When I entered I found half the tent flooded with about a centimeter of water. The book I was reading was destroyed and some clothes I had in the tent were soaked. The goose down Marmot sleeping bag was damp on the outside but seemed ok. My memory foam style pillow that would appear to be a big sponge for water? Raised on the air mattress by only an inch survived with no damage. From my car I grabbed a bunch of T-shirts and the two other towels I had and spent the next 45 minutes mopping up the water and throwing damaged items outside to deal with later.
The sunshade tent I had setup had completely collapsed. I wasn't surprised: this was a $40 flimsy sunshade that used two poles cross-crossed as its foundation and a bunch of guylines to tie it down. I hadn't really bothered to tie things down that securely and the poles were meant to be lightweight and not ready to withstand rain and wind. Add to this the heavy blue tarp I had draped over the top in order to further keep the sun off the sides and you've got nothing but FAIL.
Oh and I left my bike out in the rain, too. I dragged that under the collapsed tarp if only to keep more rain off it and figured I'd deal with that mess in the morning.
What I learned from tonight is that weather in Florida can be very tricky. Whenever you leave your campsite should expect bad weather and prepare for it even if it doesn't happen. That would have probably saved me tonight. But given that nothing really expensive or sentimental was damaged I can say this is just part of my learning experience and move on.
When I left for Key West tonight at 6pm the sky was clear, blue, hot and sunny. I had no idea what was coming.
I left Key West just before 11pm and was about 35-45 minutes away from my camp at Bahia Honda. As I left and pointed the car north/northeast I saw flashes of heat lightning in the distance. I started thinking about the need to get back to camp in case the storm hits, but driving on US1 in the Florida Keys doesn't lend itself to going fast.
Twenty minutes into the drive the rain started as a light trickle, then a shower. The lightning wasn't heat lightning anymore but spikes hitting the ground in the distance. And then something opened the floodgates and the rain came down with a volume that I hadn't experienced in a long time. I put the car in fourth gear to get better traction on the road, turned the wipers on full and turned the radio off so I could concentrate. In the next few minutes visibility went to almost nothing and my headlights were illuminating so many heavy rain drops in front of me that it reminded me of driving through a blizzard in Omaha Nebraska a couple years earlier.
I managed to stay on the road by following the brake lights of the trunk in front of me. As they slowed down, I followed their lead. Two or three of us pushed on for a couple miles until they'd had enough and pulled off, put their hazard lights on and decided to wait it out.
But I couldn't do this because I knew I had left my tent unprepared for rain and my camping gear – sleeping bag, pillow, air mattress, some books and personal supplies – were all inside getting wet.
So I stayed on the road driving as fast as I could. As I drove over bridges linking the smaller keys together I could feel the easterly pull of strong storm winds pushing the car towards the edge of the road. I did my best to relax my eyes to let them take in as much light as possible so I could focus on finding and staying within the lines on the road. My fears were being blown into the side by the wind or hitting another car head on.
Finally I found myself pushing forward over a bridge I recognized as the modern highway bridge west of Bahia Honda. I looked down and recognized the lights of the campground through the heavy rain still pounding down. Occasional thunder cracked to my west but didn't seem to be on top of me.
I took a right of US1 into the state park and two more rights to get to my campsite where I pulled the car up so the headlights were facing my tent, hit the high beams and jumped out to deal with the damage.
The 'rainfly' that normally keeps wind and rain out of my tent wasn't zipped up so rain had entered in from two sides. When I entered I found half the tent flooded with about a centimeter of water. The book I was reading was destroyed and some clothes I had in the tent were soaked. The goose down Marmot sleeping bag was damp on the outside but seemed ok. My memory foam style pillow that would appear to be a big sponge for water? Raised on the air mattress by only an inch survived with no damage. From my car I grabbed a bunch of T-shirts and the two other towels I had and spent the next 45 minutes mopping up the water and throwing damaged items outside to deal with later.
The sunshade tent I had setup had completely collapsed. I wasn't surprised: this was a $40 flimsy sunshade that used two poles cross-crossed as its foundation and a bunch of guylines to tie it down. I hadn't really bothered to tie things down that securely and the poles were meant to be lightweight and not ready to withstand rain and wind. Add to this the heavy blue tarp I had draped over the top in order to further keep the sun off the sides and you've got nothing but FAIL.
Oh and I left my bike out in the rain, too. I dragged that under the collapsed tarp if only to keep more rain off it and figured I'd deal with that mess in the morning.
What I learned from tonight is that weather in Florida can be very tricky. Whenever you leave your campsite should expect bad weather and prepare for it even if it doesn't happen. That would have probably saved me tonight. But given that nothing really expensive or sentimental was damaged I can say this is just part of my learning experience and move on.
posted by maxwax at
4:00 PM
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