So the owners just parked their vehicles on their driveway or something? Then high tailed out of there? Or is that from a garage that sandy ripped apart. Either way, wow, that's some strong winds.

 

There were other pics of that car on jalopnik, it was being stored outside under a cover.

This was my company's yard down the road from this car:

...my vehicle wasn't there.

 

u got it !

 

If it was caused by the hurricane (flooding) which I believe it was then you can be sure it's totaled as is the SUV that floated and landed on it. I heard today that about 250K vehicles were destroyed by Sandy.

 

While I appreciate your sentiment, personally I can tell you that the last thing you want is a flooded car that still runs.

 

so was that hawser across the Toyota attached to the mirror supposed to keep it from floating away?

 

It was those feral turkies.

 

If I knew Sandy was coming, I would have loaded my Boss on my trailer and high tailed it to higher ground for sure, or AT LEAST driven it out of there. You can always build another house, TV, stereo and other BS, but a BOSS there are only 6K second gens, and YES it is THAT GOOD!

 

I wouldn't blame the tow truck driver in this case if it was due to Hurricane Sandy.

I recently retired as auto claims adjuster for a NJ only based insurance company. The last seven years of my career I was a total loss and salvage specialist. At the time this thread started in Nov '12, we had barely scratched the surface with settlements due to the storm. My total loss team typically received approximately 10,000 total losses in a normal year. We got over 7000 new auto total losses from just a one day occurance in 10/2012. And we were only a small company compared to State Farm, Progressive, Geico, and others.

In NJ there were probaly over 70,000 total losses due to Sandy....individual customers, dealerships, fleet vehicles like rental car companies and large corporations, government agencies, etc. Many roads were still impassable and neighborhoods were under water for weeks after the storm.

There were only so many tow trucks and flat beds available and a good number of them were under water too. Salvage yards who had contingency plans to bring excessive vehicle volume to temporary holding facilities during catastrophic events found themselves without power and many of the temporary lots were flooded. And keep in mind that the number of tow drivers under normal circumstances was limited, only to be reduced further because many of them had no way to get to work. Those drivers that were available found themselves delayed due to road conditions. What would normally take only a couple of hours from time of dispatch to pick-up for one driver sometimes took an entire 12 hour working day for just one or two cars.

A huge number of complaint calls I received from customers wasn't because their claim wasn't settled yet, but because their car was still on the front lawn after two weeks or more. There was no way to expedite salvage removal under the circumstances.

The NJ/Staten Island/Brooklyn area was at a stand still for everybody. Sandy was unlike any storm before it in my area.

Tow operators were basically told to remove vehicles by any means necessary. The cars were total losses anyway, insurance companies had reinsurance, and customer goodwill was at stake. The cars had to be removed by hook or crook.

I still have nightmares about the three months after Sandy when I was still settling claims 10-12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

I'll give that tow driver who put chains through the wheels of that Boss a pass.

Tom