Want an idea of how many cars were damaged in Harvey? Get a birds-eye view
Drone footage of tens of thousands of cars and trucks in vast Texas fields has provided a glimpse of the dramatic scope of the flood damage to vehicles caused by Hurricane Harvey.
The vehicles fill makeshift salvage yards in open fields and at race tracks near Baytown and Bryan-College Station as they await repairs and sale.
“There’s tens of thousands, 30- to 40,000 cars. It’s just a big number,” Seth Angel of Royal Purple Raceway near Baytown told KHOU.com. But it’s just a fraction of the total number of cars damaged by Harvey, with estimates running up to a half-million, KHOU reports.
Copart of Dallas, which does online vehicle auctions and sales, has contracted with the raceway for the space. The vehicles are grouped by insurance carrier and eventually sold to salvage companies, dealers, parts shops and individuals, KHOU says.
“They’re worth something. Some are worth more than others, clearly, depending on the amount of damage they’ve got,” Angel said. “But people are buying these cars.”
The news station’s drone captured the scope of the undertaking.
There’s also a veritable town of cars in College Station at the Texas World Speedway, also being leased by Copart:
The thousands of cars on the Texas World Speedway are about 10 percent of the #Harvey-flooded cars awaiting assessment by insurance companies.
Posted by The Eagle on Tuesday, October 10, 2017
The cars there are awaiting insurance assessments, according to The Bryan-College Station Eagle.
Bill Mather of Texas World Speedway told The Eagle he didn’t know exactly how many cars were on the site last week but said the speedway agreed to take about 33,000 for processing.
He said the number of vehicles being stored in College Station, 90 miles north of Houston, “gives you an idea of the magnitude of the relief efforts that we don’t feel the effects of from here.”
Drone footage captured by local real estate photographer Larry Field provided a birds-eye perspective.
The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles offers tips on its website on detecting significant water damage in vehicles, and advises getting a car that you think may have been damaged by water inspected by a licensed mechanic. The website also has a title checker to find out if the vehicle you’re looking at was damaged in a flood.
Tom Uhler: 817-390-7832, @tomuh
This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 4:39 PM with the headline "Want an idea of how many cars were damaged in Harvey? Get a birds-eye view."