Well, who would have thought that a mobile "vacation home" would have such utility?

My family lost power in Hurrican Isabel, and since I live in a relatively sparsely populated area, service restoration took an eon. Very happy with the virtues of our old Barth motorhome, bought primarily as a vacation toy. Well, it served as a "bug out" machine in addition, and made a very untenable situation livable.

Day one, my sister called from 10 miles away, and said that her lights were out, and her brand new furnace was being threatened by water encroachment in the basement, took the Barth motorhome over to her house, and ran
an extension cord to the basement from the generator to her sump pump, effectively saving her three week old 7k investment. Took three hours to clear her basement out, she got her power back that night.

The power company gave us a 4 day estimate!

Several large trees down the street, had decimated the power lines and since they were starting with restoration in larger populated areas, this seemed perfectly plausible.

Drove home,and transferred all the perishables into the garage fridge, and ran an extension cord to it. fired up the generator, and turned on one of the A/C's in the coach.

Put a tape in the TV and put the kids to bed, after they watched "star wars".

So it began. Fortunately, the Barth has a 60 gallon tank, and after 30 some hours, it only was down 20 gallons.

Had just enough water in the fresh tank after spring time testing to take a quicky and much needed shower the first night.

After that, I filled up the fresh water tank at my sister's, and used her facilities to get my family cleaned up. After that, we were set to "Boondock" until the power came back.

Took til tonight to return to the 21st Century, and I felt real joy at the lights coming back on. Learned a lot of good lessons, and the neighbors all pitched in and helped each other out in the diversity. My family and I owed a great debt of gratitude to our motorcoach, since the Barth saved the day as a fully functioning home, with plumbing and blessed eeelectric lights, complete with A/c and video entertainment. Kept our food in the fridge from becoming an expensive loss, and provided comfort and security in an otherwise very stressful situation!

We are sorry you had to go through this, but as you said you learned some valued lessons. We say THANK YOU for sharing this with us. Have a wonderful fall as I know it is such a beautiful place this time of year. I opened a new TSC farm store in Lancaster in the late 60's and enjoyed the people so much. The Smith family Indy

God provides....