From Hurricane Katrina to Bolivia? The Journey of a Flooded Car
One man was saddened to learn his dream car had been flooded during Katrina.
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, Sept. 10, 2008— -- Servicios Joe, or Joe's Garage, is much like any neighborhood garage, with cars propped up on blocks and half-repaired engines waiting to be reassembled. But amid the vintage cars, including a 952 Opel, is one car that seems particularly out of place in this remote South American city: a chili-red Mini Cooper.
Mini Cooper's are complicated little cars, filled with expensive computers and advanced electronics, which is one reason they are not sold in Bolivia, the poorest nation in South America.
Upon a closer look at the license plate on the Mini, it's clear that the scarlet-colored car has its own scarlet past: "Brian Harris Mini," it reads, "Baton Rouge." The question: How does a Mini Cooper sold in Baton Rouge travel nearly 3,500 miles to Bolivia? And, more importantly, why is it being repaired?
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Oscar Vargas, the Bolivian owner of the 2004 Mini Cooper, still has the headlight that was on the car when he initially purchased it last year. It has clear signs of water damage -- saltwater damage.
On how a car in land-locked Bolivia gets sodden in saltwater, Vargas said, "The waters of Katrina." Hurricane Katrina.
To solve the mystery, ABC News, with some helpful guidance from The Associated Press, traveled to New Orleans and back in time three years to recall the story of so-called "Katrina cars." There were an estimated half a million cars destroyed by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters.
One of them was a chili-red Mini Cooper owned by Colleen McGaw. It was a graduation present for the young Tulane University law student, who had the car for about a year before Katrina hit.
"We left it right here in the carport, thinking that it was going to flood ... a couple of feet above the ground [and that] would be sufficient, if it flooded at all," she recalled as she walked around the garden of the rebuilt family home in the New Orleans Lakeview district.
But McGaw -- and so many others -- underestimated the storm. The water would rise up about 8 feet.
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