Hurricane Ida battered southeastern Louisiana with torrential rainfall and high winds Sunday and Monday, causing flooding and extensive power outages throughout the region and forcing auto dealerships to close.
More than 1 million homes and businesses in the state were without electricity Monday morning. All of New Orleans lost power Sunday evening because Ida caused extensive damage to the transmission system of Entergy, the city’s main utility.
Ray Brandt Auto Group has nine stores in the state. Several are clustered around New Orleans. The group said in a Facebook post that all of its dealerships would be closed on Monday.
Southland Dodge, a Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep-Ram-Fiat dealership in Houma, La., closed Saturday in anticipation of the storm.
Premier Automotive Group’s five Louisiana stores experienced no major damage but lost power, dealer principal Troy Duhon told Automotive News.
The group’s corporate office was vandalized and a vehicle was stolen from its Honda store in New Orleans, he said.
“The good news is there’s no major [storm] damage,” Duhon said. “This is nothing compared to Katrina. In Katrina, we lost 1,200 cars.”
Duhon said he is trying to check in on employees and attempting to figure out when electricity will be restored to dealerships in the region.
“We’ve gotta find out when and if we can get electricity, because without electricity, you can’t run a car dealership,” Duhon said. “We do have one major generator at our Nissan store, which can run that dealership.”
The storm may have ultimately heightened demand for cars in the area, Duhon said. He said that may require checking in with manufacturers to see if they can quickly supply more inventory. He noted inventory shortages may pose an issue.
“We’re not sure if there were a lot of flooded cars,” Duhon said. “A lot of people evacuated, so I would assume [so].”
New Orleans-based Premier ranks No. 52 on Automotive News‘ list of the top 150 U.S. dealership groups, retailing 16,656 new vehicles in 2020.
Ida made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane at 12:55 p.m. Sunday near Port Fourchon, La. It has since been downgraded to a tropical storm. The system is expected to move out of Louisiana and bring additional heavy rain and winds to portions of Mississippi, Alabama and the Tennessee Valley this week.
A measuring instrument in Port Fourchon reported sustained winds of 149 miles per hour and a gust of 172 mph at landfall, according to the National Weather Service.
Jeremy Carroll, China Haley and Tom Worobec contributed to this story.