Jennings Ferry is a Corp Of Engineer (COE) campground located along the Black Warrior River in Alabama near Tuscaloosa. Our site is right on the river bank and as you can see we have amazing views. Lots of beautiful Oak and Pine trees. Even some trees providing some shade for us. Now in case you didn’t know, Spring in Alabama is Tornado season. Important note….tree branches over our RV. So we kept a watchful eye on the weather as some thunderstorms were predicted during our 5 day stay. Regardless, we hauled out the grill and had some great food cooked out in the open and watched lightening bugs (or fireflies) come out in the early evening. They put on an amazing show and we could see them all the way across the river.
Batten down the hatches mateys cuz there’s a storm a brewin’! I’ve been alluding to an awesome event and we were about to experience it. Thunderstorms, heavy rain, and windy conditions were predicted for one afternoon/evening. Now, we had already been through a Gale and Ice Storm so we had experienced rough weather on the trip. But we were in Alabama and knew not to take these kind of predictions lightly. I had already located a “Brick Shit house” about 50 yards away and yes, it was really built out of bricks and it was toilets and showers, It was where we were going to take refuge should any one of my 3 weather monitoring apps indicate that the tornado watch was elevated to a warning. We had rolled in most of the RV slides to create a lower profile for the RV and had prepped a back pack with important docs and had a couple of empty packs to stuff Marvin and Pixie into should the need to evacuate come about. We had already ruled out moving to another location as the storm path was pretty extensive.
We experienced some really heavy rain that had rain drops as big as your fist and they were making a lot of noise. The wind was picking up quite a bit too. It quieted down and we decided to call Debis parents. We were about 5 minutes into the call, when, ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. The wind started blowing really hard, the rig was kind of shaking, rain was hitting the rig like someone was shooting it with double ought buckshot. We abruptly hung up on the parents, started looking for the cats, which of course were not to be found. Since it was dusk, there was some light, I looked at the river and it looked like it was in a blender! Whitecaps, big waves, fish flying into the air (not really), but that river was acting like it was a class 5 rapids!
Then all of a sudden……. a HUGE WHAM, and then a big BAM that shook the whole RV. Then, it calmed down.
I looked outside and didn’t see the Wizard of Oz or Wicked Witch so I assumed that we were still in Alabama and whatever that was had passed. It was still raining hard but it was apparent that something has hit the RV and caused the ceiling to begin leaking. So on went the rain gear and I went outside to take a look. No damage on the sides so I went onto the roof. OH SHIT! There was a large 8 inch branch sticking out of my RV’s roof which had fallen over and taken out one of my solar panels. Fortunately, I had repair gear. Now in case you’re wondering why don’t I have more videos or pictures of the storm and damage, because I’m not an idiot youtuber standing in a dangerous place trying to make a video. I’m ensuring the safety of my flock, my rig, and protecting my fat ass.
So what caused all this ruckus? Turns out a tornado passed over the campground without touching down. There were a number of trees close by without their top most parts. Most of the rigs in the campground escaped without damage, but one rig in particular had a large branch drop in and did not have readily available patching supplies. His rig was flooded and suffered significant water damage.
Oh crap, NOW WHAT? When you have a lot of rain, its gotta go somewhere and the river is the most likely place.
We were at this campground only a couple of days more so the rising river didn’t threaten our camping spot but it was definitely interesting to watch.