Beware of used cars flooded by Katrina

AUSED CAR dealer in New Brunswick says he’s worried that cars damaged in hurricane Katrina may have made their way to the region.
"Down in the U.S. they feel there’s a few hundred thousand cars unaccounted for that were probably flooded," Jim Gilbert told Josie Livingstone of Northside This Week. "They kind of pass them off to places where people are really kind of trusting."
Mr. Gilbert says people in the car business know vehicles damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita are on the market. He says Carfax, an online source for vehicle history, issued a warning last year. It estimated that about 571,000 cars were damaged in hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Carfax also reported that scam artists had cleaned up a few of these waterlogged vehicles, altered the titles and tried to sell them in California. It predicted similar sales across North America.
Mr. Gilbert advises people buying used cars to get a history report from the dealer so they know where the car came from.
"If you purchase a car and you get the history report it says it came from Louisiana, or Mississippi or southern Texas or whatever, Florida, you know, the chances are it could be a hurricane car."
It was with great sadness that I read that Rev. Bob Neville died last month from lung cancer at the age of 63.
Father Bob was one of the co-founders of the feisty independent weekly the Inverness Oran.
He was a man of faith, intellect and passion, larger than life. "Bob would breeze into a room, cigarette in hand, make a few witty, funny remarks and then engage everyone in what he was currently thinking about," wrote Rankin MacDonald, Oran editor and co-founder.
Father Bob was the parish priest in Inverness back in 1975-76 when two couples decided the only way they could avoid the lure of jobs in Alberta was to create their own work at home.
"Father Bob loved the idea." MacDonald wrote.
"It would give him a chance as the paper’s first editor to tilt at the windmills of injustice he saw all around him, especially pertaining to the economic conditions the people of the county had to endure.
"With his brilliant mind he understood how and why our communities were dying. He believed things could change if only people banded together to demand justice."
When Father Bob left the parish in 1977, MacDonald took over as editor. But Father Bob always kept a watchful eye on the progress of the paper.
"He’d call and we’d argue about the most recent editorial," wrote MacDonald. "It didn’t matter if you disagreed with him; all that mattered was that you took your topic and what he had to say seriously."
MacDonald and other Oran members have done that. They have nurtured Father Bob’s vision — and he was proud of the progress of the paper right up to the end.
In hospital, Father Bob turned to MacDonald and said, "We did something good with the Oran, didn’t we?"
Yes, you did, Father Bob. People in Inverness County and those working away from home say thank you for helping to give them a song, the Oran.
The town of Sussex, N.B., is spending almost $3,300 to save a local landmark — a 168-year-old white ash tree.
Long and heavy branches have damaged its trunk.
"We’ve already taken a ton of wood out of it just to relieve some of the weight on the outside and that will help," landscaper Ben Scholten told David Kelly of the Kings County Record.
"It’s a fine old tree," Coun. Gary Fulton said. "It provides a lot of shelter for people in the rain and everything else when you’re walking along the (Sussex) trail."
Mr. Scholten said development of land around the tree has made it more important than ever to prune the tree.
He said with all the work "it could live for another 100 years because it’s a good strong tree."
( kkierans@herald.ca)
Kim Kierans is director of the school of journalism at University King’s College.