Hurricane Harvey: 500,000 Vehicles To Be Scrapped Eventually
The inland flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey will end up consuming more than 500,000 cars and trucks. Car dealers are preparing for big business and used car prices are surging already.
Hurricane Harvey is on its way out. But it has left behind a massive trail of destruction with the actual loss of lives and property yet to be accounted for. The Greater Houston area of Texas was among the worst-affected one. Texas death toll has reached 37 as the Category 4 hurricane lashed out in all its fury across state. The numbers will rise once the water level caused by inland flooding subsides.
Amidst all the chaos and losses which Hurricane Harvey has left Houston with, is the large number of vehicles which have been rendered useless. A CNBC report on the topic includes an estimation made by Cox Automotive. Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Cox Automotive regards this natural disaster as more devastating than Hurricane Sandy.
"This is worse than Hurricane Sandy. Sandy was bad, but the flooding with Hurricane Harvey could impact far more vehicles."
Hurrican Harvey has settled to a tropical depression status now. But it has left thousands homeless already as inland flooding has taken over the houses.
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Since the Houston area has more cars than New York and New Jersey which were hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, more cars have been damaged by the recent tropical cyclone. In fact, the half-a-million count is twice the number of vehicles scrapped post Sandy’s destructive stint.
Insurance authorities will be having a field day once the claims for the damaged vehicles start coming in. As for the car dealers, though there weren’t any sales for the past few days, a huge surge is bound to happen as soon as Houston recovers from the natural disaster. The used car market is also touted to do brisk business as people will be opting for those once they start putting their lives back together. Unfortunately, prices for a second-hand car or truck will be on the higher side in a few days from now.
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Everyone is advised to be extremely cautious while buying used cars for the next couple of weeks, if not months. Though it’s legal to sell a flooded vehicle, provided its clearly mentioned in the documents, there were a great number of instances of cars and trucks salvaged after Hurricane Katrina being sold without stating their history.