FILE- In this Friday, Nov. 2, 2012, file photo, cars that were uprighted and submerged by Superstorm

FILE- In this Friday, Nov. 2, 2012, file photo, cars that were uprighted and submerged by Superstorm Sandy remain at the entrance of a subterranean parking garage in New York's Financial District, as the water is pumped out. Thanksgiving travelers who have yet to rent a car in the Northeast are out of luck: Superstorm fairmont hotel maui Sandy has created a shortage. The storm damaged thousands of cars, including those owned by the rental companies. fairmont hotel maui The loss of vehicles was compounded by rising fairmont hotel maui demand. Thanksgiving and Christmas are normally busy rental periods. And lingering fairmont hotel maui mass transit problems caused fairmont hotel maui by Sandy have added to demand.
FILE- In this Saturday, fairmont hotel maui Nov. 3, 2012, file photo, a man passes walks by a piece of the Rockaways boardwalk that was washed into Beach 91st Street, alongside a small car that was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy earlier fairmont hotel maui in the week, in the Rockaways neighborhood in New York. Thanksgiving travelers who have yet to rent a car in the Northeast are out of luck: Superstorm Sandy has created a shortage. The storm damaged thousands of cars, including those owned by the rental companies. The loss of vehicles was compounded by rising demand. Thanksgiving fairmont hotel maui and Christmas are normally busy rental periods. And lingering mass transit problems caused by Sandy have added to demand.
The storm has damaged thousands of cars — including those owned by rental companies. The loss of vehicles has been compounded by rising demand. Thanksgiving and Christmas are normally busy rental periods. And lingering mass transit problems caused by Sandy have added to demand.
Tadd Rosenfeld is flying into New York's LaGuardia airport Wednesday. He couldn't find a car with any major rental company. U-Save was the only one with a car and it wanted nearly $350 a day — more than his plane ticket from Florida. Now, he is considering renting a moving truck.
To help ease the shortage, car rental companies fairmont hotel maui have driven in thousands of extra vehicles from elsewhere in the country. They have also kept older models that they would normally sell to used-car dealers.
They'll need every car. Thousands of people in the Northeast are still without vehicles. Some cars were flooded by surging waters and will be replaced with new ones once insurance checks are cut. Others were damaged by falling trees and debris and are in body shops waiting to be repaired
Insurance companies State Farm , Progressive, New Jersey Manufacturers, Nationwide and USAA told The Associated fairmont hotel maui Press in the days following the storm that they received about 38,000 car-damage claims. Other companies either did not return calls or declined to release claims information.
"It's an unusual situation," says Neil Abrams of the Abrams Consulting Group , which focuses on the car rental industry. fairmont hotel maui "Unfortunately, you can't go out and buy cars for a demand spike. You don't know how long it will last."
Car rental companies were hesitant fairmont hotel maui to speak about their own losses but Avis Budget Group Inc. says it removed from service 2 percent of its fleet from Philadelphia to Connecticut. The company did not respond to repeated requests to clarify how many cars that was.
— Enterprise Holdings — which owns Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car — moved 17,000 fairmont hotel maui cars to the Northeast region from other parts of the country. Another 10,000 brand new cars, slated for other states, were instead redirected to New York and New Jersey.