It will be a very long time before the next new or used car is sold in New Orleans.

With water from Lake Pontchartrain draining into the city on Wednesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans' 75 to 80 new-car dealerships may be a total loss.

"All of the New Orleans metro stores are assumed to be gone because of the rising water," Brett Brown, DaimlerChrysler district sales manager in Baton Rouge, told Automotive News. His territory also includes some New Orleans suburbs.

Brown said 15 stores in New Orleans are in "unknown status."

"Most of the cars are underwater or have water damage," Brown said. "The devastation is unbelievable."

Many automakers said they don't know the extent of the damage to their dealerships in the coastal regions of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, the area that took the major impact from the Category 4 hurricane late Sunday and early Monday.

"The automobile business has just about come to a halt," said Marshall Hebert, owner of Hebert's Town and Country Jeep in Shreveport, La. "Nothing's going on."

Hebert, the National Automobile Dealer Association state director for Louisiana, said dealers in New Orleans are out of business for the foreseeable future. He said dealers did not have time to move their inventories.

"I have a friend who decided to ride it out, and we're still trying to find him," he said.

Hebert also said some dealers on the coast may not have been carrying enough insurance to cover their buildings and inventories. He said some of those dealers found that insurance was too expensive or that companies wouldn't write policies because of damage caused by past storms.

Plants back at work

Four auto assembly plants are located in states affected by the storm:



Mercedes-Benz builds the M-class SUV in Vance, Ala.


Hyundai's Sonata plant is in Montgomery, Ala.


General Motors has a truck plant in Shreveport, La.


Nissan's plant in Canton, Miss., builds the Titan truck, Quest minivan, Altima sedan and two SUVs.

No factories reported heavy damage from the storm. The longest production stoppage was at Nissan's Canton plant in central Mississippi. The plant closed Monday evening and reopened on Wednesday. General Motors and Ford say it's too early to know how the storm will affect production.

The storm slammed ashore with winds as high as 145 mph, drowning entire neighborhoods and wiping out roads and much of Interstate 10, which runs through the region. The storm also caused breeches of two levees that protect New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain.

The entire auto industry is likely to be affected by Hurricane Katrina.

The impact


Used-car prices: Prices of undamaged, secondhand vehicles could soar. Many residents in the storm area who were underinsured may not be able to afford new cars once their insurance companies pay for destroyed homes and vehicles.

A few used-car auctions are in the area that sustained damage, but the extent of that damage is not yet known. Ray Nichols is CEO of BSC America Cos., which owns Auto Auction of New Orleans. The 40-acre, five-lane auction site is on the east side of New Orleans and is situated on higher ground that many other areas in the city. Its site is surrounded by canals on three sides and has a pumping system.

BSC's site did not sustain damage in previous storms, but Nichols says he has no idea how the facility made out this week. He assumes it did not escape the water and wind that devastated the city.

Nichols has assembled a catastrophe team of contractors and electricians armed with generators, trucks, other equipment and two motor homes that stand ready to inspect and repair the site when he gets clearance from authorities to deploy them.


Raw materials: The wreckage and flooding along the Gulf Coast has halted steel shipments through the Port of New Orleans. Higher steel prices are on the way, according to Charles Bradford, metals analyst at Soleil Securities Inc. in New York.

But only a small portion of steel imported through Gulf Coast ports typically is destined for the Big 3 and transplant automakers because they buy from domestic sources, Bradford says.

Auto parts and rubber also travel through New Orleans to reach suppliers' and automakers' northern plants.


Gasoline prices: The storm shut down refineries in the New Orleans area, causing an almost immediate increase in gas prices. For example, at one filling station in Detroit on Tuesday, the per-gallon price for unleaded premium gasoline jumped about 20 cents to $3.09. A Louisville, Ky., station was charging $2.50 for one gallon of unleaded regular gasoline on Monday; on Tuesday, that price jumped to $2.73.

Higher gasoline prices could dramatically hurt sales of the gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs that Detroit automakers depend on for the bulk of their profits.

Paul Ballew, GM's director of global market and industry analysis, said the impact on sales of fuel-thirsty pickups and SUVs was something the world's largest automaker was "wrestling with each and every day," Reuters reported.

At least one analyst said he believes gasoline will reach $4 per gallon.

"There's no question gas will hit $4 a gallon," Ben Brockwell told CNN. "The question is how high will it go and how long will it last?"


Donations from automakers: Automakers on Wednesday were firming up plans to help residents and their dealers in the storm zone.

On Wednesday GM gave the Red Cross $400,000 and pledged another $250,000. GM also has given the Red Cross free use of cars and trucks.

A Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. spokesman says the automaker likely will donate at least $1 million. Toyota officials were deciding Wednesday how best to distribute the funds. The company also will set up a program that allows employees to donate to a relief fund that Toyota will match, said Toyota spokesman Xavier Dominicis in California.

Ford Motor Co. has pledged $100,000, and that likely will go higher once Ford officials have assessed the situation, a company spokesman told Automotive News. Ford, the Chrysler group and other automakers have offered their customers in the storm zone temporary relief from vehicle payments. Ford also is offering storm-area residents a $750 rebate toward the purchase of most new Ford vehicles.

DaimlerChrysler said Wednesday it will donate $500,000 to hurricane relief.

Emergency officials won't let people into the New Orleans area, so many automakers say they don't know how bad the damage is to their dealerships and facilities. But in other areas, such as Mobile, Ala., officials have been able to get a close look at the devastation.

It's "certainly not the kind of catastrophic damage we've seen in Mississippi and Louisiana," said Thomas Dart, president of Automobile Dealers Association of Alabama. "So we're thankful for that. The entire auto industry is likely to be affected in some way by Hurricane Katrina."

Greg Migliore, Robert Sherefkin, Arlena Sawyers and Gail Kachadourian contributed to this report