Now his white Toyota Corolla sits with a broken axle in the parking lot of a Strips convenience store in Rockport, Texas. It is, he admits, probably the end of the road for his trusty car with almost 190,000 miles on it.
"The hurricane was right on my tail," Smith said. "It caught me. It lifted the back of the car up and I was looking down at the road through my windshield. Then - bam - it slammed back down and that was it."
Smith, 56, hasn't filed a claim with his insurance carrier yet; he's been busy helping his parents clean out their wind-damaged house along the coast. He said he doubts he'll get much anyway and is instead hoping for some assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Still, Texans already have filed more than 100,000 storm-related claims on their car- and truck-insurance policies, said Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas trade group, and some analysts estimate that figure will climb as high as 500,000.
With hurricane season in full swing and the tally from Irma just beginning, Harvey has been projected to be one of the costliest disasters in U.S. history, with experts estimating damage could exceed $100bn. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has even suggested that damage could reach $150bn to $180bn.
