JEDDAH: Aside from human life and building structures, the floods on Nov. 25 took a heavy toll on cars and trucks.
Victims continue to recount stories of their experiences on the fateful day when they were caught unawares as heavy rain lashed the city flooding most of the roads and streets.
Sultan Mahmoud, an Egyptian business executive, said he was driving along Khaled bin Waleed Street and with great difficulty negotiated the flooded area to park on the pavement but not before the water level had reached neck-deep. He abandoned the car and ran to safety. “The car is a total wreck and I am faced with changing it with a new or second-hand one,” he said.
A tour around Jeddah a fortnight after the floods that ravaged the city, especially on the eastern side of the Jeddah-Makkah (Haramain) Expressway, gave a graphic account of vehicles damaged or completely destroyed.
“Some of the cars parked in open warehouses are not roadworthy any more as they were engulfed by floodwaters,” Abdul Rahman Habtoor, a car salesman, told Arab News. “There are rows and rows of cars parked, but how many of them are roadworthy is a big question,” he said.
Asked how many vehicles have been destroyed or damaged, he said: “They could be in thousands.”
Most of the recent car models are computerized and they have been damaged by floodwaters, he said, adding that owners of such cars have either to replace the computerized parts or reprogram the computers.
“Such reprogramming have to be done at specialized service centers owned by dealerships and not at wayside repair shops,” said P. Thomas, an Indian auto technician. He added that he received a number of requests for setting right the car computers, but he was helpless as he did not have such facilities nor had the expertise.
However, he added, car repair and maintenance shops are doing a roaring business by replacing the parts.
Inquiries with some of the victims show that they have been going from pillar to post to locate right mechanics for repairing their vehicles. Dealer service centers and roadside mechanics, as also the various repair and maintenance shops at Sanaiyah in North Jeddah, say they are finding it difficult to cope up with the workload in the wake of the floods.
“The rain flooded the city and now we are flooded with work,” said Khaled Siddiqui, a Pakistani who runs a workshop in Sanaiyah.
According to car repair centers, there has also been a pressure on spare parts dealers to get parts for vehicles. “Demand is so heavy that we find it difficult to meet it due to our limited stocks; however, we try to meet it by hook or crook,” said Sulaiman Marzouki, a spare parts dealer for Japanese cars at Bani Malek.
In the case of some very old models, he added, he has succeeded in getting parts from overseas locations, including Pakistan after failing to get them from Riyadh, the Eastern Province, and elsewhere in the Gulf.
Even before the floods, the used car market was flourishing, said Muhammad Moiz, a Bangladeshi assistant at a dealer.
“Since Saudis are in the habit of changing their cars every four or five years, most of them try to strike a lucrative deal in the market,” he said, adding that scores of vehicles change hands every day at this market.
The human and material damage wrought by the floods has made some car dealers to either postpone or cancel their launch of new cars. A spokesman for Mazda said their launch for Mazda 3, which was scheduled for Monday, was canceled due to the havoc caused by the floods.
