Towing companies are overwhelmed rescuing cars under water

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - RoadRunner Towing and Recovery Services right across the street from the Baton Rouge airport says they’ve had a record number of cars recovered from the flood.

Calls have been flooding the lines of emergency dispatchers for the past couple of days. Driving around Baton Rouge, you can’t miss seeing cars stranded in the water.

“Some of these people had to leave their cars for 24 to 72 hours. I mean we’ve been that busy,” said Judy Smart, owner of RoadRunner Towing.

Judy says they’ve brought in more than 200 cars in just the last three days, averaging almost 80 cars a day, which is far from their normal intake.

“We normally bring in 20-30...something like that,” said Smart.

And with all those cars coming in at once, space in her lot is starting to run short.

“It’s tight...it’s tight and you know we’ve got another lot that’s bigger than this one and it’s full as well,” said Smart.

One of her drivers says what he’s seen on the road since Monday has been anything but normal.

“The last couple of days has been pretty, pretty busy. A lot of rain, a lot of flooding, cars on the side of the road,” said Paul Cooper, who works as a driver for RoadRunner Towing.

He says he understands people are anxious but asks them to remain calm and patient

“At RoadRunner, we’re here, we try to get to the vehicle as quick as we can, and we try to keep everybody safe and keep the roadways clear,” said Cooper.

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