We've had some very strong winds today...  I was driving  about 70mph on the highway and noticed something flapping then realized it was about 2ft. of  the awning- yikes!   Managed to pull off the road to see what was going on and found the roll/unroll lever was set to unroll.   Luckily the arms were secure and I flipped the lever to roll, it snapped the awning back up but about a foot was still left out dangling.. put extra straps on the arms and drove home w/ out anymore problems.  it was still too windy to try to re-roll and see if there is any damage to the awning.  

 I have no idea how that lever could have flipped the wrong way.  I'm wondering if I should put some kind of lock on it?  Have any of you had this happen?

Could you imagine that a tree limb or something of the sorts, would have maybe flipped that lever to the deploy side.....Which is out and down.... or at least it is on my old Silver Star.

OR! Sabotaged by some jealous horse person

There was a thread posted on this very subject a short time back on HTW.

Describing an awning lock device.

What a bad dream! I guess it could be worse,but,MAN! I'd hate to look out and see that going on.

I can't remember what type of awning it is but will check it out tonite after work and order an awning lock ASAP.  Wonder why they don't come with something like that in the first place?   Hopefully it's still in one piece - it was so windy yest. I didn't dare try to unroll it to find out.

We had a Carefree awning fabric blow open crossing the Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore of MD. The arms were locked and tied. I started hearing a funny fluttereing sound about midway of the bridge. Everything looked fine down the side of the trailer. Then, the kid, said "mom , is the awning fabric suppose to be sticking  4 feet up in the air like a big mohawk?" That was back in 98 during a horrible storm that had gale force winds. The wind popped the thingy from the locked to the unlocked position. Thank goodness the arms were velcroed shut as an added precaution. Now we have  the Automatic electric awning, but I still keep my awning arms velcroed shut!

I was told when I had my awning put on to get 2 dog collars and buckle them around the arms of the awning. I did that on my way home. The dealer who installed it says this happens more often that you realize. They also make velcro straps for this. I think I got 10 inch collars. When a friend got his trailer I did the same for it.

Nancy