May 24, 2022—The summer season is upon us, and with that comes no shortage of storms that cause inevitable damage to our vehicles. But one community in South Dakota is dealing with an influx of auto body and glass repair after facing a storm with hurricane-force winds.
According to KELOLAND, the storm that blew through a couple of weeks ago was categorized as a derecho. Derecho storms create massive wind forces that have the opportunity to cause significant damage.
Many vehicles in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area have windows wrapped in plastic and are full of nicks, dents and debris.
“The damage that happened, the best way to explain it from the cars that are out there is it got sandblasted from the dirt and debris from the wall of dirt,” Tyler Van Heerde with Pierre’s Body Shop said in the article.
Van Heerde described some of the damaged vehicles feeling "like sandpaper". Some of the paint damage may require stripping and repainting on the entire affected section of the vehicle.
Naturally, the commotion from this storm has caused a huge uptick in auto body repair requests. Van Heerde said that they are already scheduling into the end of June at this point, and he anticipates that there could be up to a two month wait to get all of the repairs addressed.
Glass replacements have been arriving since shortly after the storm initially hit, but there could still be delays ahead for shops in the area.
“In the 24 years of doing auto glass and glass-related business, this is huge damage compared to what we’ve seen before,” Glass Doctor owner Justin Eimers said in the article.
Shop employees are putting in long hours to address repairs and glass replacements. Other compounding factors at play against this situation are local labor shortages and an increase in the price of replacement parts.
