With Hurricane Irma remaining a dangerous storm, Manheim regional vice president for the Southeast Mark Ford shared an update on Wednesday afternoon regarding how the company plans to handle the storm projected to impact Florida as early as Friday.

Ford indicated the following Manheim locations in Florida will be closed on Friday, including:

Manheim Fort Lauderdale
Manheim Fort Myers
Manheim Palm Beach
Manheim Lakeland

Ford added that Manheim Caribbean also will be closed until further notice.

“During severe weather conditions such as Hurricane Irma, Manheim proactively plans and prepares to protect the safety of our team members, clients and locations,” Ford said in a statement sent to Auto Remarketing. “This includes encouraging clients to retrieve their purchased vehicles at our locations prior to Friday to avoid any possible damage and moving physical sales to digital channels such as OVE for safety reasons.

“We are proactively communicating with our clients about the status of our operations and their vehicles and are helping to direct them to other Manheim digital channels for their vehicle needs,” Ford continued.

In addition, in preparation for any possible disaster relief needs for Manheim team members in the areas affected by Hurricane Irma, Ford indicated the human resources team at Cox Automotive will share relief resources and information.

As a division of Cox Enterprises, Manheim team members have access to the Cox Employee Relief Fund (CERF) should the need arise.

“Our CERF team in Atlanta is always on standby with immediate assistance for all Manheim team members as needed,” Ford said. “CERF is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization funded by donations from Cox team members to provide financial assistance to team members with unexpected needs resulting from a disaster.”

Advisories from the National Hurricane Center distributed on Wednesday said that remained a dangerous Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds at 185 mph. Irma raged through the Caribbean on Wednesday, impacting the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as Puerto Rico with places like Cuba in the storm’s path before it possibly makes landfall in the Sunshine State sometime this weekend.

“As Hurricane Irma approaches, I am urging every Floridian to get a plan and be prepared for potential life threatening impacts from the storm,” Gov. Rick Scott said in a statement.