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somewhere.</h2><div class="article-metadata"><a href="/author/kyle-cheromcha">By Kyle Cheromcha</a><span itemprop="datePublished" content="1505930015000" class="date">September 20, 2017</span><span itemprop="dateModified" content="1505930015000"/></div><div class="article-tags-wrapper"><ul><li><a href="/watch-this" class="article-tag">Watch This</a></li><li><a href="http://search.thedrive.com/?site=thedrive&q=flood cars" class="article-tag">flood cars</a></li><li><a href="http://search.thedrive.com/?site=thedrive&q=Hurricane Harvey" class="article-tag">Hurricane Harvey</a></li><li><a href="http://search.thedrive.com/?site=thedrive&q=insurance" class="article-tag">insurance</a></li><li><a href="http://search.thedrive.com/?site=thedrive&q=racetrack" class="article-tag">racetrack</a></li><li><a href="http://search.thedrive.com/?site=thedrive&q=Texas" class="article-tag">Texas</a></li></ul></div></div><div class="hero-image"><div class="image-wrapper" style="padding-bottom: calc(575/1024 * 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icon-email"href="mailto:?subject=Drone%20Footage%20Reveals%20Staggering%20Amount%20of%20Flooded%20Cars%20Destroyed%20by%20Hurricane%20Harvey&amp;body=http://www.thedrive.com/watch-this/14504/drone-footage-reveals-staggering-amount-of-flooded-cars-destroyed-by-hurricane-harvey?xid=emailshare"target="_blank" rel="nofollow"title="Share via Email" aria-label="Share via Email"></a></li></ul></div></div><div class="articleFragment"><div class="author-module"><div class="authorPic" style="background-image:url('http://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/foundry/image/?q=50&amp;w=140&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimedotcom.files.wordpress.com%2F2017%2F05%2Fboat4.jpg%3Fquality%3D85')" title="Kyle Cheromcha"></div><div class="authorInfo"><div class="nameAndLink"><span class="authorName">Kyle Cheromcha</span><a href="/author/kyle-cheromcha" class="viewArticlesLink">View Kyle Cheromcha's Articles</a></div><div class="socialLinks"><a class="authorSocialLink" href="http://www.instagram.com/kylecheromcha"><span class="icon icon-instagram"></span>instagram.com/kylecheromcha</a></div></div></div></div><div class="has-ad-column"><div class="ad-column"><div class="ad" data-ad-type="colAd"></div></div><div class="articleFragment paragraph"><p>It's almost hard to believe in this hyperactive hurricane season, but Harvey's <a href="http://www.thedrive.com/aerial/14014/breathtaking-drone-footage-shows-vast-destruction-of-hurricane-harvey" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ongoing reign of destruction</a> in southeast Texas began just three short weeks ago. Over that time, the storm claimed more than 80 lives, inflicted <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/09/03/hurricane-harvey-damages-cost/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">untold billions of dollars</a> in damage, and reshaped an entire region. Some communities are still covered with floodwaters, now a toxic mix of sewage and petrochemicals. And because the Houston area is so driving-centric—and the flooding so biblical—the rising waters engulfed <a href="http://www.thedrive.com/news/13961/hurricane-harvey-may-have-destroyed-half-a-million-cars-and-trucks-in-texas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an estimated half a million vehicles.</a></p><p>For a place that's built around the car, losing so many in one fell swoop is a problem in more ways than one. The first and most pressing issue has been getting replacements for owners so people can return to their lives and get back to work and school to help power the region's recovery. It also didn't take long for many <a href="http://www.thedrive.com/the-hammer/14020/how-to-repair-a-flooded-car-right-before-you-have-it-crushed?iid=sr-link8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">to raise the alert</a> that flooded vehicles often make their way back into the used car supply chain and into the hands of unknowing buyers. But in the meantime, officials needed to figure out just where to keep hundreds of thousands of them.</p><p>Fortunately, if there's one thing Texas is blessed with, it's space. Authorities turned two area racetracks—the disused Texas World Speedway, and the <a href="http://www.thedrive.com/watch-this/9622/watch-a-2200-horsepower-huracan-lay-waste-to-a-quarter-mile?iid=sr-link1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">very-much-used Royal Purple Raceway</a>—into massive open-air storage pens, trucking in cars by the thousand on flatbeds in a mammoth logistical operation. A drone photographer who goes by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/texasaerials/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@texasaerials</a> on Instagram recently flew a <a href="http://www.thedrive.com/aerial/12205/dji-spark-phantom-and-mavic-drones-compared?iid=sr-link4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">DJI Spark</a> over the scene at Royal Purple Raceway, and the resulting video and images are mind-boggling in scale.</p></div><div class="js-social-media-embed social-embed" data-embed-type="instagram" data-embed-id="BZPyZuIAzTX"></div><div class="articleFragment paragraph"><p>You'll have to squint to pick out individual makes and models in the aerial footage, <a href="https://twitter.com/FotiABC13/status/904680920053161984" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">but pictures from reporters on the ground</a> show the storm was truly egalitarian in its destruction, swamping Ferraris and Kias alike. We don't even want to think about the mold blossoming inside these cars as they slowly steam in the hot Texas sun. The track alone could reportedly end up taking in 100,000 cars as more roll in daily. <a href="http://autoweek.com/article/nhra/houston-area-drag-strip-dumping-ground-30000-and-counting-hurricane-harvey-damaged" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Autoweek </em>reports</a> its owners negotiated a six month contract with Copart, the salvage auction specialists running the operation, so drag racing should resume there by February.</p></div><div class="js-social-media-embed social-embed" data-embed-type="facebook-post" data-embed-url="https://www.facebook.com/brazosdrones/posts/222009711665550"></div><div class="articleFragment paragraph"><p>The scene at Texas World Speedway is eerily similar, with all manner of cars parked together in neat rows as far as the eye can see. The cars will wait here until they're processed by insurance companies, reclaimed by dealers, or scrapped outright.&nbsp;</p></div></div><div class="video-brightcove"><div class="video-brightcove__player-wrapper"><video data-viewplay="true"  data-video-id="5555156947001" data-account="4453423237001" data-player="default" data-embed="default" class="video-js"  controls playsinline></video></div><div class="video-brightcove__meta-wrapper"></div></div><section class="related-content related-content--rich"><div class="title-message">MORE TO READ</div><ul><li class="related-article" style="background-image:url('http://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/foundry/image/?q=60&amp;w=860&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimedotcom.files.wordpress.com%2F2017%2F09%2Fgettyimages-672227955.jpg%3Fquality%3D85')"><a href="/sheetmetal/14341/bicycles-replace-cars-in-hurricane-harveys-aftermath" class="linkable"><div class="related-flag">RELATED</div><div class="title">Bicycles Replace Cars In Hurricane Harvey&#039;s 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