ATLANTA -

Though its destruction appears to have been far less severe than that of Hurricane Irene last month, Tropical Storm Lee certainly had an impact on the Southeast and Gulf Coast during Labor Day weekend and impacted automotive world during a big sale weekend. Fortunately — based on what Auto Remarketing learned Tuesday — the harm to dealerships and auctions doesn’t appear to be rampant.

On the dealer side, Charles Cyrill of the National Automobile Dealers Association told Auto Remarketing on Tuesday that: “As of this afternoon, the National Automobile Dealers Charitable Foundation has not been contacted for assistance.”

As some may know, the fund provides “financial assistance to dealership employees who have been affected by unforeseen emergencies and natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and flood,” according to NADA.

Paul John, of the Georgia Independent Automobile Dealers Association, said that he has “heard nothing from any of our dealers about damage or problems after these storms came through.”

Bob Israel, executive vice president of the Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association, said that a couple of dealers had sign damage and some had flood damage to vehicles in the service lane, but no inventories were affected.

At Cherokee Ford in Woodstock, Ga., sales manager Todd Garman said his store had no vehicle or facility damage, but traffic was off 50 percent.

“We just saw a lack of traffic,” he noted.

Charlie Gerstner, of The Luxury Autohaus in Marietta, Ga., said: “All of our vehicles are stored in our indoor showroom, therefore we did not receive any
damage. I would say that the storm may have affected sales on Monday, as travel in and around Atlanta was difficult.”

On the auction side, Mike Broe, Manheim’s executive vice president, U.S. operations, said four of his company’s facilities were put on high alert, but were ultimately not harmed.

“We had four locations (New Orleans, Pensacola, Mississippi, and Lafayette) that were on high alert due to Tropical Storm Lee,” Broe said.“We are fortunate to report that none of our locations sustained any damage and business operations have not been affected.”

At Auto Auction in Birmingham, Ala., Monday’s sale was already pushed back to Tuesday due to the holiday, says general manager Jim Clark.