More safety tips

[Ozz]

Johnpjpa's post reminded me of a flare tool I made.
We were disabled in the Ozark mountains in a very heavy rain-storm, I set out my trucker-style reflective triangles, but wanted to use flares for further safety, as the rain was heavy and we didn't have that much of a shoulder. I had great flares, the long-burning ones with a nail in the bottom for upright placement.
Only problem was that I couldn't get them into the asphalt shoulder. I tried propping them up, but they fell over with the wind and the heavy rain put out the flare. Even with no rain, a horizontal flare is not visible.
So, I took an old blower shaft, drilled a hole in the end, cut off the head of a concrete nail and welded it in. Paint, and it was ready to go. I have two pictures of it:

[jackel1959]

Great idea! When we had the blowout on the Mountaineer, just as I started to change the tire, a very big, dark cloud descended on us and proceeded to dump buckets. Needless to say, it extinguished all of the flares we had put out along the shoulder. OBTW, it stopped raining about 1-2 minutes after we got done with the tire change. Go figure.

Jack

[Ozz]

Wow, timing on that storm is right out of the chapter on Murphy's Law..
Yep, I found as long as the flare is upright, even in a downpour it stays lit, but on the ground, not so much.