Car Dealer Is Open; Walk-Ins Are Rare

NEW ORLEANS — From a distance, some of the new cars in Banner Chevrolet's vast parking lot looked almost normal. Sure, the finish may have been a little dull, the tires a little muddy. But the real giveaway, on closer inspection, was the flecks of seaweed on many of the dashboards, or the odd fish carcass in the cargo bed of a pickup truck.

Banner, one of Louisiana's top three Chevy dealerships, had 500 new vehicles submerged to their rooflines by Katrina's storm surge. Marshall Soullier, 54, general manager and part owner, said his $14-million claim may be a record for the insurance arm of GMAC, General Motors Corp.'s finance subsidiary.

Looters yanked $20,000 worth of wheels and tires off cars before Soullier was able to get a private security firm on site.

Banner is located off Interstate 10, just east of the city's Inner Harbor Navigation Canal -- an area that was flooded to depths of six feet or more.

The dealership's showroom, like its repair bays and four acres of parking lots, was still covered with smelly, ankle-deep mud by the time Soullier made his way past police and National Guard checkpoints to inspect it a few weeks ago.

But the computer equipment and crucial business records stayed dry. "They were on the second floor," he said. "We made sure of that."

Well before returning, Soullier had placed a rush order for several trailers to serve as temporary offices. Four trailers were finally delivered, but two were in such poor condition they were practically unusable. The other two, equipped with laptop computers and folding chairs and tables, are the interim headquarters of Banner Chevrolet. The only decoration is a wind-whipped American flag salvaged from the hurricane.

On a recent afternoon, a man in a white plastic hazmat suit was power-washing a section of pavement and a gigantic forklift was hoisting waterlogged vehicles onto a car carrier.

Soullier explained that General Motors, sensitive to any suspicion that ruined Chevys might be sold to unsuspecting buyers far away from the flood zone, requires cars to be shipped to Michigan and crushed under GM supervision before it will pay off on dealer insurance claims.

Although Banner Chevrolet is open for business and advertising that fact on billboards and on radio, the walk-in traffic has been almost nonexistent.

And it's probably just as well. Soullier has lost the bulk of his workforce.