Family's Trailer Destroyed: Seeking Assistance

My family and I were heading to our spring break trip through New Mexico. for those who might not know us my husband and myself our school teachers and we spend our breaks traveling the country with our teenage daughter doing the junior ranger program with the national park system. To date we have been to 211 sites across the NPS system reaching from coast to coast in the USA.

When on March 14, 2025 we’re caught in a massive dust storm. We were traveling south on highway 385 in south eastern Colorado after changing our mind about going to the sand creek massacre national historic site because of the storm. We had been driving through a mild to at times severe dust storm. It seemed as if it was passing so we continued on our journey. When we reached the stretch of the 385 where we rapidly came upon line up of stopped cars.

Praise God for the amazing trailer breaks and new breaks on the tow vehicle that we could stop because the vehicles were impossible to see. The cars were not moving. From what I have been told and could barely see it was two semis, a car, another car in the ditch and the a Honda Element in front of us. We set the emergency break and kept the tow vehicles breaks engaged keeping the altos (our beloved trailer) breaks engaged. We had been like that for a good 15-20 minutes praying the whole time that nothing would happen. We knew we were the last car in the lineup.

The storm got worse, found out at the time of the accident the wind was 80 mph. First hit was mild by a white pickup truck that did send us into the vehicle in front of us. Then moments later we were struck again but this one was much harder causing us to jackknife and damaged the trailer beyond repair. We watched as the roof blow down the road. The white truck had pulled into the ditch. We got out of our car and found safety with another driver as we watched the wind tear what was left of the alto apart.

Thankfully we have not been badly injured, just bumps and bruises and whiplash. One of the praise God moments with this whole terrifying event. We truly know our trailer saved our lives!

We are insured however the cost of Safari Condo Altos has risen dramatically since we purchases ours in 2022 (a new to us 2017 model). We are looking for assistance to cover the difference between the insurance money and the cost of replacing both the trailer and a new tow vehicle. Anything would be a blessing!

We already have our six week summer trip planned to New York and DC with our daughter and are just praying we can still making this amazing camping trip happen.

Thank you for considering to help us!