Piermont Auto Shop Still Recovering From Sandy

David Gerhardt’s uncle opened Gerhardt's Automotive Repair in 1938, and his father joined him sometime in the 1950s.

David Gerhardt started working there when he was young, remembering spending time there when he was 8-years-old, and eventually became co-owner with his father in the early 1980s. In his decades working at the repair shop, and the previous decades his relatives owned it, Gerhardt never really saw any sort of flooding damage.

“There was a nor’easter sometime in the early ‘90s when we got maybe eight inches of flooding, closer to foot in the actual shop because that dips down a bit lower,” he said. “Another time a bit later we had a torrential rain and some flash flooding, so the drains all filled up quickly and we got a few inches. But that was nothing compared to Sandy.”

Back when Superstorm Sandy hit Rockland on Oct. 29, the bottom panel on Gerhardt's shop door gave in quickly, flipping up and allowing a surge of water to rip into his office and shop. In the office, the water line goes about three feet off the ground. In the shop it goes about four feet high, with splash marks up even higher since the water was pouring in so quickly.

“We’re still cleaning,” Gerhardt said. “We cleaned to the point where we could start working. We had to get back and start making a living again.”

The shop was closed for five weeks. Gerhardt said before they could open they had to go through all the tools, clean and lube them off, just as long as they didn’t rust too bad to the point where they couldn’t be used anymore. He said some of his tool providers were very helpful is helping with that process, or providing parts for larger machines so he didn’t have to fully replace them.

“We put a lot of machines up on the lifts, and they still got hit,” he said.

The water went up over the office desk, taking out the phones and fax machine. They lost an inspector machine and wheel balancer.

The shop is now fully operational, although not completely organized since Gerhardt hasn’t finished the cleaning process yet. He hopes to finish in the coming weeks, as the weather warms. Gerhardt also said he took out a $50,000 loan from a bank to get the shop back up and running.

He also said he’s starting to see more activity in Piermont recently. 

“For a while after the storm I think people were afraid to come into Piermont,” he said. “It seems like you see more people walking around now. It seems like things are getting back to normal. Now we just have to hope this doesn’t happen again.”