Milton: RV Dealers, Parks Appear to Have ‘Dodged a Bullet’ – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
EDITOR’S NOTE: The above video is from Storm Chaser Aaron Rigsby’s YouTube channel. His video description reads: The destructive aftermath left behind from Hurricane Milton across Florida is nothing short of heartbreaking. Most were still cleaning up from Helene.
While damage from Hurricane Milton was still being assessed, early reports out of Florida indicate RV dealerships, parks and campgrounds all fared better than they were expecting. Many of those RVBusiness was able to contact said they escaped with minor damage to their facilities as well as inventory, and that employees all seem to be faring well.
Florida residents repaired damage from Hurricane Milton and cleaned up debris Friday after the storm smashed through coastal communities and tore homes to pieces, flooded streets and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes, according to an Associated Press report. At least eight people were dead, but many expressed relief that Milton wasn’t worse. The hurricane spared densely populated Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.
Arriving just two weeks after the devastating Hurricane Helene, the system flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays ‘ baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane, the AP report continued. As residents assessed damage to their property, over 2.5 million customers in Florida remained without power Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us. But the state’s vital tourism industry started to return to normal, with several theme parks preparing to reopen.
Dave Kelly, president of the Florida RV Trade Association (FRVTA), said his offices will remain closed at least through the weekend as they are without power and Internet service. He also needs to deal with a tree limb that smashed through one of the windows. Still, he said, it appears as if they only suffered minimal damage. He hasn’t been able to contact all of his dealer members to determine their status, but all indications are mostly positive.
“It looks like we dodged a bullet,” Kelly said. “I think we’re going to be in good shape.”
RV Dealers Report Minimal Damage
As one might expect, most attempts to reach affected dealers were unsuccessful Thursday and this morning. A person who answered the phone at Lazydays Tampa location said the dealership was still operating on generator power Thursday afternoon, as was the corporate headquarters. She also said staff was busy helping remove a number of trees that had fallen on the property during the storm.
The good news at Blue Compass RV, a 104-store operation based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is that none of the firm’s eight Florida stores were seriously damaged by Hurricane Milton unlike two years ago when Hurricane Ian left the company’s Ft. Myers location was under water with major flood damage and lost 80 to 100 units back when Blue Compass was still known as RV Retailer.
“This latest 100-plus mile-per-hour hurricane was a big storm that cut through and certainly had a major impact on Floridians,” Blue Compass RV President & CEO Jon Ferrando told RVB on Thursday. “But in terms of our stores, while it ran right right through our Sarasota store as well as Tampa and Orlando, we’ve had significantly less damage than anticipated. So, it’s probably a best case scenario in terms of damage to our property and inventory. It’s all very manageable. Our teams did a great job of prepping for this storm. We’ve had a lot of experience with hurricanes down here in Florida and it’s an all-out effort right now to get our stores back up and running and fully operational within the next day or two. We’ve got generators, and we’re working very quickly to restore operations across Florida.”
General RV Center has six locations in Florida, and CEO Loren Baidas said they, too, only had minimal damage to facilities and inventory.
“Fortunately for us, the hurricane went in between all of our stores rather than right on top of one of them,” Baidas said. “But we had no major structural damage and no major inventory damage. Four out of our six stores have power, but all of them are open – we have a short-term work-around for those two stores without power.”
Baidas credited store management and staff for doing a great job in preparing for the hurricane, and added that employees who need time off due to their personal situations are being given that relief.
Ben Hirsch, chief operating officer for Campers Inn RV and its 37 locations, said the company’s four Florida stores – two in Ocala and two, including its corporate headquarters, in Jacksonville – were able to escape with minor damage and its employees seem to be faring well as can be expected.
“We did have some property damage. It was what I would define as mild property damage for the intensity of the storm, and that was more in one of our Ocala stores,” Hirsch told RVB on Thursday afternoon. “We’ve inspected most of our inventory. We’ll continue to look at all of our inventory, and so far I would categorize the impact to Campers Inn has been relatively minor. We’ve also done checks with all of our employees who will answer the phone. Some of them are still without power, so we haven’t gotten ahold of everybody, and all of our employees are safe that we’ve been able to get ahold of so far. So that’s been really good, too. So, so far, so good for the Campers Inn team and our dealerships.”
Like other dealerships in the path of any hurricane, Hirsch noted there’s not much they’re able to do to prepare for such an intense storm.
“There’s not a ton, but there are some common sense things that we do, such as corralling our inventory away from things that could be falling, like trees and branches and that sort of stuff,” he said. “We put the least expensive inventory on the outside and the most expensive inventory on the inside, so if there is damage, it’s minor. We sandbagged some of our dealerships, the actual physical properties, to make sure that they’re okay. It’s pretty much the same things you’d think to do with your own personal property is what our teams do.
“When we have enough time and there’s a place to really mitigate, we do move our inventory as well,” he added. “In this case, with pretty much the entire state of Florida looking like it was impacted, there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity to move inventory. But we have done that in the past. It’s tough to be really a coastal dealer in the southeast, but there are some things you can do to try to mitigate.”
RVB was able to contact several other RV industry companies and colleagues in Milton’s path who reported varying degrees of property damage, but all appear to have escaped with no injuries.
Thanks for reaching out. We appreciate it! It’s been a crazy week, that’s for sure! I am happy to report we have power, not too much water or wind damage and overall are in great shape compared to our friends on the west coast. Hurricane season has been BRUTAL this year!
Craig Floyd, vice president of sales and marketing for Intellitec Products LLC, said it was a “long night” but everyone as doing okay.
Bob Parish of Wells Fargo DF and his family rode out the hurricane in central Florida, where he expects to remain until this weekend before returning to his Tampa-area home to assess the damages.
LeeAnn Barber of Contoure USA said it’s been a “crazy week” and a “brutal” hurricane season, but they do have power and had minimal water and wind damage due to Mliton.
Campgrounds Fare Better Than Expected
Preliminary reports from campground operators and industry officials suggest that Hurricane Milton didn’t do as much damage across Florida as was originally anticipated.
Officials cautioned that it could be several days before the full extent is known because of continuing power outages, which disrupted communications. However, they also said that many parks were quickly able to resume operations after the storm.
Bobby Cornwell, president and CEO of the Florida RV Park and Campground Association, said he has been in touch with many park operators across the state who have provided him with assessments on the storm’s impact.
“Most of Florida, except for the Panhandle area, was impacted by Hurricane Milton’s torrential rains, winds, and tornadoes. However, many parks have responded from around the state, including some in the Tampa, Sarasota, and Ft. Myers areas, and it appears that the majority are going to be fine once debris is cleaned up and power is restored,” Cornwell said.
“I’m sure there are some parks that have received major damage, and many of the coastal communities are in for a long recovery. But, overall, it appears the damage wasn’t as bad as expected.”
Rachel R. Godbout, COO of Advanced Outdoor Management, said her company did not have any parks damaged by Hurricane Milton, but the succession of recent hurricanes has produced logistical work for the company. “For any of the storms that hit, we shift our campers around to other parks in our portfolio as quickly and efficiently as we can. We also make sure to let people in the area know if we have vacancies at parks out of the affected areas. We know what it’s like to have to evacuate. So we try to help as much as we can and be as compassionate as possible. Those times are very stressful.”
Toby O’Rourke, president and CEO of Billings, Mont.-based Kampgrounds of America, Inc. (KOA), said preliminary reports from KOA franchisees were positive.
“While we continue to assess the full impact of Hurricane Milton, at this stage, early reports sound positive for our campgrounds,” she said. “Campground managers and owners are returning to evaluate their sites as soon as it is safe to do so. We expect to have a full view of Milton’s impact in the coming days and anticipate being ready to welcome fall and winter campers—including our Snowbirds—back to our affected campgrounds soon.”
Cornwell, for his part, added that damage from the three hurricanes that struck Florida this year is limited and should not have much of an effect on Florida’s snowbird business this fall and winter.
“There are over 200,000 RV Sites in Florida, and even though we do not have reports back from all of the parks, I feel comfortable estimating that even after three hurricanes this year, at least 96% of the RV parks and their sites are in operation or will be open for business soon and ready for the snowbird season.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: While RVB is endeavoring to learn what it can regarding the extent of hurricane damage throughout the affected areas of Florida, there are obviously plenty of companies, dealerships and campgrounds, about which the Elkhart, Ind.-based trade publisher has heard very little and would appreciate news tips at (contact by email or phone).
