Automotive Repair News Today

Lucas Underwood [00:00:05]:
So, obviously a hurricane. Hurricane. What? Helene?

Braxton Critcher [00:00:09]:
Helene. Not Helen or Helene. Helene.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:13]:
Helene.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:14]:
Hurricane Helene.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:15]:
And we know this because your wife is the news producer at the only station that's willing to say the name.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:21]:
Yeah, we just looked up three, four videos and all the things would not want to try and tackle how to pronounce that name.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:27]:
So I just want to point out.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:28]:
That if it's the hurricane, the. The tropical storm.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:34]:
Yeah. And so here's what sucks about this, is I've got my whole team down here, right where we're at. We're in Raleigh. There was no impact.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:46]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:47]:
Out here.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:47]:
Like a drizzle. Yeah, drizzle. Like a leaf moved on a tree once.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:52]:
But the entire western part of the state is decimated. Chimney rock is gone. And when I say it's gone, I mean, like, the whole town is gone. I have employees who cannot talk to their family members. Like, cell phone service is non existent. Power is out. They're saying it's gonna be out for four, maybe five days. And, like, we're talking main transmission lines.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:11]:
We're not talking about, like, branch lines.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:14]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:16]:
Houses are gone. Houses have washed down creeks. Whole roads are gone. I've got an employee who can't get home because there are no roads to home. Braxton, we don't know if you're going to get home. Yeah. Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:29]:
Yeah, I'm in. I'm in Asheville.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:30]:
Yeah. You're in the Boone area. Yeah. And 40 is gone. Yeah, I. 26 is gone. Completely washed out.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:36]:
Yeah. Only way I'm able to talk to my wife is she is a news producer, and she's able to get to the station. There's a radius around Asheville that is basically missing the roads. But within Asheville, there are a couple of navigatable roads that she's able to use to get to work. And she has. They have a generator. They're at the station. So we're able to text when she's at work, but after that, when she leaves for the evening, I can't talk to her.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:02]:
We haven't had power since 03:00 a.m. two nights ago.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:06]:
And I'm guessing the stations on a generator.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:08]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:08]:
Yeah. Well, I mean. So, you know, I guess what I'm seeing right now is there is no water. Right. Because then, boom, water's out.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:17]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:19]:
The grocery stores, part of them were flooded in bone. The rest of them are empty. Right. Because they clearly have just been bombarded. People in town can't get gas. Right now, my plan is is to stop and get. Stop and get like bunches of cases of water and bunches of dry goods and things that we can take and give out. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:42]:
We talked to Jimmy from Jimmy's automotive last night that, that's at the expo. Hope he doesn't mind me saying, but he was saying that, that some of the shops in town have water up to the gutters. And you know that some of these places don't even have flood insurance because they're not in the flood.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:56]:
Right? No, no, this doesn't happen to western North Carolina. I mean, this is a deal every five years happens on the coast of the state. But the mountains, I mean, you know, you've lived there your whole life.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:08]:
Yeah, I've never seen anything like this. They're saying this compares to 1940 and 1916 were the last time we've seen events like this. Um, and so, you know, I, I called Scott this morning and I said, hey, were you able to get Justin? One of my service advisors, I said, hey, were you able to get to, to his wife? And he said, lucas, he said, on either side of their house is 250 foot ravines that are 50 and 60ft deep. He said, like, I'm gonna. The only way to get there is walk up into the woods and walk for five to 6 miles. He's like, I don't even really know where their house is at. And he said, so I'm gonna be walking in the woods trying to find this. He said, there's power lines down everywhere.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:47]:
The roads are completely washed out. He said, it's, it's just impossible to access.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:51]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:52]:
And so Justin's leaving to try and go find her, but she has no cell phone service. He's not talked to her in days. So we're trying to figure out, like, what to do. And I'm torn because I get that my team wants to be at home with their families to try and help them, but like, last night, they were saying, hey, we're going to leave. And I'm like, guys, there's a curfew. It's a 08:00 a.m. to 08:00 p.m. curfew.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:13]:
If you get to the bottom of the mountain, they're not going to let you up, you know, I mean, Mike, you, you went to school in, in Boone. They've got 321 closed. Right. And that's unheard of.

Mike Allen [00:04:24]:
Yeah, I can't imagine. One of my employees is here. His spouse is with American Red Cross, and they're on 24 hours call. Right. So got the call. They were heading out this morning and said, don't expect to be back for three weeks.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:39]:
Yeah. And that. That's insane.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:42]:
Yeah. I mean, so we did not. I think, like, a lot of people prepare for this. Like, we knew a storm was coming before I left, and so I did. We didn't get a lot of supplies or food. And so I think my wife has. She got some stuff at work when she can get there, but at home. And I'm assuming that she's like, a lot of people has, like, half a loaf of bread with some peanut butter because with the fridge being out, all the food's gone at this point.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:09]:
And so it's like, it. People were unprepared. And now I was talking to some folks here this morning, and I thought, okay, I'll try and grab some stuff. Like, you head up there, get us through a couple of days. But they said, hey, you know, we've experienced storms like this because they're from the coast. And they said, sometimes if it's bad enough, you're talking two, three weeks for power. And I thought, oh, a couple of days, whatever. But now I'm starting to process, you know, this is really bad.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:41]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:41]:
And I'm gonna need to get some serious supplies. Cause, I mean, we could be dealing with this for a long time.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:45]:
Yeah. For sure. And, you know, I think what frustrates me is the news told us all that it was gonna be bad.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:51]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:52]:
But there's. And this is no offense to your wife, there is definitely some over. I don't know what you would call it, if it bleeds, at least sensationalism.

Mike Allen [00:06:05]:
And we've become desensitized to sensationalized coverage. And so when the governor said 24 hours before the storm got here that this is going to be historic levels of destruction in the mountains, everybody rolled their eyes. Because I live here in Raleigh, our kids school got canceled because the wind blew a little bit.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:25]:
Yeah, exactly.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:26]:
Well, and, you know, usually they're wrong, too. Like, you know, a lot of times when a meteorologist says snow doesn't happen.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:31]:
Or whatever, I always watch Brad Panovich, and the dude is risk averse. He's a fantastic meteorologist. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying he's so risk averse that he just screams that all this is a big deal. This is a big deal. This is a big deal. This is a big deal. And so you kind of, like, get to the point.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:48]:
You're like, man, you always say it's a big deal. When's it not going to be a big deal.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:51]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:52]:
Right. And so I think it's, it's sensationalism and I don't think it's necessarily intentional. Right. They see this all the time.

Mike Allen [00:06:58]:
Oh no, it's absolutely intentional because that's what we're just talking about.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:03]:
Yeah. That's what drives views. It all comes back to money.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:07]:
Well you know, so what do we do now?

Mike Allen [00:07:11]:
Well I mean there's a lot of helplessness feeling.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:13]:
Right.

Mike Allen [00:07:14]:
So, but some of the members of ASTA, our association as you've been describing have been really badly impacted. These guys that are in hundred year floodplains don't have flood insurance.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:27]:
Right. Because it's not required and it's expensive.

Mike Allen [00:07:29]:
They've got water to their roof. So I mean everything's gone. There's some folks that have, their shop is okay but their house has been torn in half by trees or landslides. Like you said, there are people who are down here and they haven't been able to get in touch with their family yet. The roads are all washed out. They can't get home. So it feels kind of helpless. But you do what you can try to do.

Mike Allen [00:07:51]:
Right. So ASTA has set up a GoFundMe raising money to support members and employees and families that have been affected. And so we'll post a link to that GoFundMe but, and there's also a link to apply for that assistance. So anybody who's listening, who is an ASTA member who has been impacted or your employees or family have been impacted, please apply to that and we'll try to get those funds dispersed as quickly as possible as they come in. But it's terrifying to think about them.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:25]:
I think anytime something like this happens, you think about the bad stuff like what are we going to do? These people have lost a lot and that is true and we've got to figure all that out. It's also an opportunity for the people who are not affected to pour into someone who is and for this industry to, we talk about all the time, how are we going to improve the industry? You know, let's change the industry. Let's move it forward. And this is an opportunity, a chance for, to kind of not put the money where the mouth is, but kind of put the money where the mouth is but also come out and help people. If a shop needs help repairing a home, a shop, and you can get there with supplies, absolutely.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:10]:
By all means, this is a chance.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:11]:
For the industry, to help the industry.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:13]:
And here's what's cool about it is that oftentimes it's hard to see. We talk about the problems within the industry, and we talk about Jeff sometimes, and Jeff is often talking about the real heartburn of the industry. That's why we call him the jaded mechanic, because he has those hard conversations. But I sat in here with Jeff sitting at the edge of the room talking about this with tears streaming down his face, because, you know what I mean? Like, the fact that this industry comes together like this and that Asta is here for this. And, you know, yesterday I was on stage, I was introducing Jeff's panel, and that's one of the reasons that I always talk about. It's so important to be an ASTA member if you're not just in North Carolina, but in my opinion, nationwide. It's why it's important that you attend these events is because you build these relationships and, you know these people. And then when something goes wrong, you get into a spot, your industry comes to support you and comes to lift you up.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:06]:
Right? And that's the stuff that nobody ever sees. Oh, I don't like flat rate. Oh, I don't get paid. What I think I should get paid. Man, all that's tiny, right? When your industry shows up and helps you build your house back, and when your industry shows up and make sure you have food and water and make sure your team's paid, like, that's a big deal.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:22]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:23]:
You know what I'm saying? Mike, what's our goal for the GoFundme?

Mike Allen [00:10:27]:
Oh, we set it at 50,000. I hope that we blow it out of the water. Right. And we've already got stuff coming in, but we haven't really started spreading the word about it. But that's gonna be going out this afternoon.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:36]:
Okay.

Mike Allen [00:10:37]:
Obviously, we're putting it on auto repair news today, and hopefully you can put it out on some of your channels as well.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:42]:
For sure.

Mike Allen [00:10:43]:
And we'll be talking about it tonight at the closing dinner. We've got some tools that we're gonna be auctioning off this evening at the closing dinner with the proceeds all going to that. And, you know, just do whatever you can to be helpful. I mean, think about how blessed we are and how good we've got it and when it all gets taken away. So I was thinking about your guy who, Wednesday, when he came down, he, you know, he didn't have his Airbnb yet, and he needed somewhere to put his insulin, so he'd just throw it in the fridge. Right. That's so easy. Where's he gonna put his insulin if he didn't have power for the next three weeks?

Lucas Underwood [00:11:15]:
Yeah, for sure.

Mike Allen [00:11:16]:
And that's affecting.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:16]:
That's a tough thing.

Mike Allen [00:11:17]:
That's a very small window into what's affecting hundreds of thousands of people right now.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:23]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:24]:
And you know, I will say this. The majority of the people in that area, the most resilient people. Right. And it's not necessarily that they're better this or that. They're really used to very adverse conditions. Right. We're used to getting feet of snow and roads closing and not being able to get in and out. We're used to not having power.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:44]:
Many, many, many of the houses up there have wood stoves and things like that. Right. But the thing is, is that there's a lot of people who aren't, and they've moved into that area and they're dependent on those things. And then on top of that, I mean, a lot of people just don't have water. And think about that for a minute. Like, when you don't have running water, that makes life exponentially more difficult. I boone Walmart, right? Like, everything that was inside Walmart is in the parking lot because it washed it all out. That never floods.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:16]:
Right. Lowe's hardware was flooded. All the grocery stores were flooded. And you just don't think about that like, holy cow, where am I going to get food?

Braxton Critcher [00:12:25]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:25]:
You know, if you don't have a store of it, if you don't have something put back that you can get to. And I know some people did prepare, but I don't know that you could prepare for three weeks.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:35]:
No, no. I mean, you said it. You know, that we've. We've had some, I think 2018, 2019, there was 25 inches of snow that kind of shut the town down for three days. Yeah, but I mean, this is times 100, so you don't prepare for stuff like this. It's very unusual.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:54]:
Absolutely. So head over to either the Asta Facebook page. Click the link in the description.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:00]:
Yeah, there'll be a link in the description in the podcast YouTube.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:03]:
Please, please make sure you share this. It's important that you share this, because if you don't share this, more people won't know about it. We won't be able to get as many people the help that they need. Now, this is not just a random gofundme. This is not ran by just random people. This is the association. There are bylaws. There are things that regulate how this is distributed.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:23]:
There. There's a process of a procedure for this within the association so we can make sure that it's not just willy nilly. Right. So we know it's safe. The associations of 501 c six.

Mike Allen [00:13:36]:
Yes. I don't know. I don't read that stuff.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:40]:
The president of the association, folks, it's a 501 c six.

Mike Allen [00:13:46]:
It's a 501 c six, I believe.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:48]:
Yeah, yeah, it's a 501 c. It's a 500.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:52]:
Yeah, it's a 501 c. We know.

Mike Allen [00:13:54]:
That somewhere between three and six.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:56]:
Yeah. It's a solid thing that you can pour your heart into without having to worry about how this is going to be distributed and how this is going to go out.

Mike Allen [00:14:06]:
Thank you.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:06]:
Thank you.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:11]:
Hey, if you're still here, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Automotive Repair News today. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment. Like share, subscribe to the podcast. It'll help us out a big deal and help grow the show. And you know what? While you're at it, slap on a review, too. If you feel like this content is helpful for the industry, don't forget to follow us on all your favorite social media platforms. We're on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. Stay connected and be the first to know about new episodes, behind the scenes content and more.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:42]:
And until next time, let's make the industry better together.