The August 11 derecho did real damage across Porter County and the rest of Northwest Indiana. If a tree came down on your vehicle, if water got where it should not be, or if your insurance company has already called it a total loss, this page explains what we can do and what to expect. Our own people are cleaning up their own yards this week, so we understand the situation you are in.
Status: we are open. As of Thursday, August 13, Currie Motors Ford of Valpo is open and operating at 2052 W. Morthland Drive. Sales, service, parts and the collision center are all taking customers. Sales runs Monday to Friday 9 AM to 9 PM and Saturday 9 AM to 7 PM. Phone lines are working: sales (219) 234-2168, service and body shop (219) 234-2169, parts (219) 234-2166.
If your vehicle is under or near a downed power line, do not touch it and do not approach it. Call 911, then NIPSCO on 1-800-464-7726. A line that looks dead may not be. No vehicle is worth it, and no repair we could do is worth it.
NIPSCO has described this as the largest outage event in the company’s history, with restoration running multiple days in some communities. Traffic signals may be dark. Treat every dark intersection as a four-way stop.
Once everyone is safe, the vehicle can be dealt with. It will still be there tomorrow.
Falling trees and limbs, flying debris, hail and wind damage. Our body shop handles the repair and works directly with your insurance company. Collision center →
Flood water, debris strikes underneath, electrical faults after a soaking. Some of this is not visible and is worth checking before you keep driving. Book service →
If the vehicle is drivable but you cannot get away, or the road to your house is still blocked, ask about mobile service and pickup and delivery. Pickup and delivery →
If you are not sure whether it is a body shop problem or a service problem, call and describe it. We will tell you which, and whether it needs looking at now or can wait.
Storm damage to a vehicle is normally a comprehensive claim rather than a collision claim. That distinction matters, because comprehensive claims usually carry a lower deductible and, with most carriers, do not affect your rates the way an at-fault collision does. Your policy is the authority on that, not us.
A few things that make the process easier, learned from previous storms rather than invented for this one:
Wide shots showing the vehicle in place with the tree or debris, then close shots of each damaged area. Adjusters work from evidence and it is difficult to reconstruct later.
Carriers are handling an enormous volume of claims across Northwest Indiana right now. The queue only gets longer. File even if you have not decided what to do yet.
In Indiana, your insurer can recommend a shop but the choice is yours. If you want the work done here, say so.
Many policies include a rental allowance during repairs. It is worth confirming what yours covers before you need it, because repair queues will be long.
We can provide a written repair estimate for your claim. Call the body shop on (219) 234-2169.
Sometimes the repair costs more than the vehicle is worth, and the insurance company declares it a total loss. If that has happened, you have a practical problem: you still need to get to work, and the settlement takes time to arrive.
Here is what is worth knowing.
You do not have to decide immediately. A total loss settlement is based on the actual cash value of your vehicle before the storm. If you think the figure is low, you can document your case with maintenance records and comparable listings. That is worth doing properly rather than quickly.
You do not have to wait for the check to start looking. We can put a vehicle on hold, work out what your budget realistically is, and have the paperwork ready for when the settlement clears. If there is a gap between the settlement and what you need, our finance team can look at options.
Used is a legitimate answer. If your vehicle was ten years old, a comparable used vehicle may be a closer match to your settlement than anything new. We are not going to push you up a price bracket because an insurance company sent you a check.
Selection helps here. Over 1,000 new Fords are available to you across our Currie Motors stores, and we can move a vehicle between them the same day. We also carry used inventory across most makes. If a settlement has to be spent on something specific, having a lot to choose from is the practical difference between replacing your vehicle and settling for whatever is left. Our inventory is online, and you are welcome to browse it from wherever you have power and signal.
Our technicians, salespeople and office staff live in Valparaiso, Portage, Chesterton, Hebron, Kouts and the surrounding towns. A good number of them came in this week from houses with no power, past the same downed trees you are driving around, after the same night without air conditioning.
That is not a sales pitch. It is the reason we are not going to pretend this is a normal week or run a promotion off it. If the answer to your question is that you should wait, or that it is not worth repairing, or that you should call your insurance company before you call us, we will tell you that.
We are open, but a call ahead means we can tell you what to bring, whether it is a body shop or a service job, and roughly how long you will be waiting.
Every body shop in Northwest Indiana is going to be busy for weeks. We will be straight with you about timelines rather than optimistic.
Regional demand for glass, panels and trim will spike. We will tell you what is realistic when we write the estimate.
We are not running a sale off this. If you need a vehicle you need a vehicle, and the price is the price it would have been last week.
The August 11 derecho tracked roughly 331 miles from eastern Iowa across northern Illinois and into Indiana and Ohio, producing straight line winds of 70 to 100 miles per hour. The strongest measured gust in our region was 99 miles per hour at Gary. Several tornadoes were confirmed along the track, including in Lake County.
NIPSCO named the hardest hit communities as Cedar Lake, Chesterton, Crown Point, Dyer, East Chicago, Gary, Griffith, Hammond, Highland, Hobart, LaPorte, Lake Station, Lowell, Merrillville, Michigan City, Munster, Portage, St. John, Schererville and Valparaiso. If you are in any of those, we are within reach and we are open to helping.
Currie Motors Ford of Valpo 2052 W. Morthland Drive, Valparaiso, IN 46385 Body Shop and Service: (219) 234-2169 Sales: (219) 234-2168 · Parts: (219) 234-2166 NIPSCO outages and downed lines: 1-800-464-7726 Gas leak or emergency: 911, then 1-800-634-3524
Body shop, service, or a vehicle your insurance company has written off. Start with a phone call and we will tell you what is actually worth doing.
