感恩節迎來美國出行高峰，但因大批車輛在颶風“桑迪”襲擊期間被毀，美國東北部地區的租車需求在此期間急劇增加。該地區很多租車行都無車可租，就算有幾輛可租，租金也高得離譜，每天的租金達350美元，以致有些用戶考慮以更低的價格租輛卡車回家過節，卡車的租金每天才19美元。為了緩解這一局面，很多租車行都開始從其他未受颶風影響的地區調集車輛，同時還將本打算出售給二手車行的老舊車輛重新列入可租車型。據悉，颶風中被毀的車輛有些是被水淹，有些則是被颶風吹落的樹干砸毀，有五家保險公司稱颶風后已接到3.8萬個車損理賠電話。

Thanksgiving travelers who have yet to rent a car in the Northeast are out of luck: Superstorm Sandy has created a shortage.

Thanksgiving travelers who have yet to rent a car in the Northeast are out of luck: Superstorm Sandy has created a shortage.

The storm has damaged thousands of cars — including those owned by rental companies. The loss of vehicles has been compounded by rising demand. Thanksgiving and Christmas are normally busy rental periods. And lingering mass transit problems caused by Sandy have added to demand.

Existing reservations are mostly being honored, but people who still want to book for Thanksgiving are finding almost no cars left. The few cars available carry a hefty premium.

Tadd Rosenfeld is flying into New York's LaGuardia airport Wednesday. He couldn't find a car with any major rental company. U-Save was the only one with a car and it wanted nearly $350 a day — more than his plane ticket from Florida. Now, he is considering renting a moving truck.

"Showing up to Thanksgiving in a U-Haul is worse than showing up with an escort. But at $19 a day, it's tempting," says Rosenfeld, CEO of TeamLauncher.com, an outsourcing company based in Miami.

To help ease the shortage, car rental companies have driven in thousands of extra vehicles from elsewhere in the country. They have also kept older models that they would normally sell to used-car dealers.

They'll need every car. Thousands of people in the Northeast are still without vehicles. Some cars were flooded by surging waters and will be replaced with new ones once insurance checks are cut. Others were damaged by falling trees and debris and are in body shops waiting to be repaired.

Insurance companies State Farm, Progressive, New Jersey Manufacturers, Nationwide and USAA told The Associated Press in the days following the storm that they received about 38,000 car-damage claims. Other companies either did not return calls or declined to release claims information.

"It's an unusual situation," says Neil Abrams of the Abrams Consulting Group, which focuses on the car rental industry. "Unfortunately, you can't go out and buy cars for a demand spike. You don't know how long it will last."

Car rental companies were hesitant to speak about their own losses but Avis Budget Group Inc. says it removed from service 2 percent of its fleet from Philadelphia to Connecticut. The company did not respond to repeated requests to clarify how many cars that was.

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(Agencies)

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen ）