The night before Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana last week, Phillip Tarver and about 30 family members, friends and employees spent the night at his Lake Charles Toyota dealership.
By daylight, the sign bearing the store's name had lost some of its letters to Laura's winds. Siding was missing, some vehicles had been hit by debris and the roof of the body shop "was barely hanging on by a thread," Tarver said. But the structure held firm.
"The building took a good beating, but it's still standing strong," he told Automotive News as he examined what the storm left behind. "It's amazing."
Dealers in southwestern Louisiana and parts of eastern Texas spent late last week assessing the damage from Laura, which came ashore Thursday, Aug. 27, near Cameron, La., as a Category 4 hurricane with 150-mph winds. At least six people were killed, according to the Associated Press. Laura later weakened to a tropical depression.
The hurricane's winds cut electricity and damaged buildings while some flooding occurred in southwestern Louisiana, including near the city of Lake Charles.
Across the state line in Texas, reports of damage came from the towns of Orange and Port Arthur, but Houston to the west appeared to be spared. The worst of the projected surge from Laura may have been averted because the storm's path veered from its anticipated course, according to the Weather Channel.
For dealerships, the hurricane arrived at a time of low used-vehicle inventory and high prices because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Automakers continue to ramp up vehicle production after U.S. auto plants shut down for several weeks in the spring as cases of COVID-19 soared. Dealers have reported difficulty keeping popular models in stock as demand rebounded and state restrictions on business activity eased.
It's too early to gauge the severity of the hurricane's impact on used-vehicle inventory, said Larry Dixon, senior director of valuation services at J.D. Power.
Some severe weather events caused used-vehicle prices in the U.S. to rise for about two months afterward, with demand and pricing dependent on the extent of the damage, Dixon said. Used prices rose 2 percent after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, 3 percent after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and 5 percent after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, he said. "It can be very much a disruptive force for a brief period of time," Dixon said, adding that "we are already in an elevated price environment."
Inventory was on Texas dealer Mitchell Dale's mind as he prepared for Hurricane Laura. He moved 200 vehicles at his McRee Ford store in Dickinson to higher ground ahead of the storm and said last week that the scarcity and cost of vehicles determined which models were moved inside or to other locations. For instance: Super Duty pickups — "the scarcest inventory that we have," he said, and also the highest priced — were moved into the service department to protect them from wind damage.
Dale said the dealership did not experience damage from the hurricane and reopened Friday, Aug. 28.
Employees at JK Chevrolet and JK Subaru in Nederland, Texas, parked as many vehicles inside the service department as possible and lined up additional customer vehicles and some of the stores' inventory in rows several vehicles deep alongside the building to protect against wind damage, said Daylyn Turner, vice president of operations at both stores and general manager at JK Subaru.
Inventory has been tight, especially at the Chevrolet store, Turner said. He said he evacuated prior to the storm and had not heard of extensive damage to the stores, adding that he hoped the dealerships could reopen by Monday, Aug. 31, depending on whether electricity is restored. "We're very fortunate with this particular storm, but it hasn't fared out that well in the past, so you always have to be on the safe side," he said. "You can't ever control what these things do."
Houston-based Group 1 Automotive Inc. said Friday that it reopened six dealerships in the Beaumont, Texas, area that it closed ahead of the storm. The stores had little damage and lost no inventory.
In Louisiana, many dealerships closed in preparation for landfall, Will Green, president of the Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association, said in an email last week. After the storm, several dealerships in the Lake Charles area could not be reached by phone, and some stores in Laura's path posted online that they were closed.
"There are still many without power and water in the areas most affected," Green wrote Friday. "[I]t is too early to tell how long dealerships will close and how inventory will be affected.
"Right now dealers are concerned with taking care of their employees and families and trying to get back to doing what they love as soon as possible."
David Muller contributed to this report.
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