With Hurricane Dorian currently bearing down on Florida and working its way up the East Coast, automotive shop owners are scrambling to prepare their businesses for the storm. Boarding up windows, parking as many vehicles under cover as possible, and tying down any loose objects that could fly away are a few ways to prepare. But what can be done to protect expensive tools and equipment from potential flood waters?
Whether they realize it or not, most shops have the solution right there in the bay: their very own vehicle lifts. The shop’s most sensitive and costly items can be placed on a lift and raised to a level where they will be safe from the rising waters.
One such owner, who asked to remain anonymous, has a shop in an area that floods with even moderate amounts of rain. When purchasing a new lift, the shop was considering purchasing mobile column lifts, according to Steve Perlstein, president of Mohawk Lifts.
Perlstein points out, however, that mobile column lifts have a weakness when it comes to flooding.
“Mobile columns have electric motors at knee level,” he says. “When Hurricane Katrina hit [New Orleans], they lost all their mobile lifts based on water flooding and wrecking the motors.”
Armed with this knowledge, the shop owner decided on a 75,000-lb capacity four-post lift instead of the mobile columns. Currently in the path of Dorian, it seems it was the right decision for this shop. They’ve placed the lift’s power unit (which includes the motors, pumps, and electronics that operate the lift), along with much of their shop equipment, on the lift’s runway and raised it to 6’3” - safely out of the way of flood waters to come.
Different types of vehicle lifts are suitable for different situations, and each offer various benefits. Some of these benefits, such as protecting a shop’s tools and equipment, may not be obvious until they are needed.
