Big brains only need respond...

dang utube videos - I click on one and get sucked down the rabbbit hole lol

 

I had 36,000 in the box and rolled straight through that wind advisory and barely felt it.

I will admit that I slowed to 55 in curves and on bridges.

 

One 60 mph+ 90 degree cross wind and you would have been turned over.
You got lucky.

Don't count on luck to get you through, or bravado.
Too many that do that end up either injured or dead.

 

I run Wyoming every week 2 times across the entire i80 section. It’s really not that bad as long as you pay attention and have common sense.

 

Common sense is rare thing

 

If you have moveable tandems, put them to the back of the trailer. I have watched a lot of videos of a blow overs. Haven't seen one yet with tandems all the way back. The blow over is always initiated at the ### end of the trailer twisting over.

 

Anyone who was stupid enough to ignore the warnings Wyoming had posted on Monday this week deserved to get blown over. Wyoming started posting warnings the previous Friday of this approaching storm front, and to expect wind 60+ mph. I knew the weather was coming, I left Denver Monday morning at 4am for a load in Morrill, Ne., but rather than head up 25 to 85, I went the back way out of Denver, I-76 to Hwy 52, to 14 to 71 to 26 in Scottsbluff over to Morrill. Very little wind, coworker came up 25 to 85 about 45 minutes after me, he said it wasn't bad. I chastised him for ignoring the warnings, pretty sure the boss chewed him out as well. When we left Morrill to head back to Denver, we were 79,800 and 78,800 respectively. We came back via 85, once we made that final turn from SSW to W, the last 20 miles to 25 was brutal, easily a 40 mph headwind. There were empties heading up 85, even with their tandems back that were almost blown off the road. In Wheatland, they had multiple gusts exceeding 80 mph.

When we got into Cheyenne, we saw Palmer on his side, SB I-25, just So. of the 80 interchange. Further South, almost across from the POE was another one on it's side, with a couple of empties crawling past him. Another mile down the road was another one blown over. At the top of Wyoming Hill, just South of the rest area, there were two that were blown off the road, both looked like they steered into it and dropped off the hillside (about a 50' drop, I guarantee they needed clean underwear) and stayed upright, both needed a winch out to get out of the field. There was another one blown over almost at the top of the bridge. Further down, there were two more blown over between the state line and Exit 2.

All this said, Colorado is also to blame, the idiots at CDOT and CSP never bothered to put up a single warning or notice of the winds and the closure, until AFTER all these blow overs happened, AND Colorado had a blowover themselves. At 5:15 am on Monday, Colorado sent out a text alert of the wind restriction from Cheyenne to Wheatland. It was 12:40 in the afternoon before they finally closed the road, and that was after getting multiple calls from drivers warning them of the conditions, as well as a blow over, and Wyoming Highway Patrol basically begging them to close it. They finally did close it at Wellington, and it stayed that way until 2am Tuesday for lightweight, high profile vehicles.

If you ran I-80, all the signs warned of the winds on 25, and that lightweight high profile vehicles were prohibited.

 

I can tell you from exp., if the wind is strong enough, it will still blow you over. There were several I saw on 85 with tandems slid back, that the trailer was making a serious effort to pass the tractor. Last spring, there were 4 blownover So. of Hawk Springs with the tandems slid back, and you get on the stretch from Cheyenne to Wheatland, mother nature will simply blow you into Nebraska.