General Motors’ Chevrolet Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky., will be down this week for repairs after a tornado started a fire at the plant early Saturday, the automaker said.
Several tornadoes tore through six states Friday and Saturday, killing more than 90 people and causing catastrophic damage, The New York Times reports.
The fire “has caused damage to the facility, including the roof and an employee entrance. The small number of employees that were onsite are all safe,” GM said in a statement Sunday. “Maintaining a safe work environment for plant employees is our top priority.”
GM said first and second shifts at the factory would be canceled the week of Dec. 13 as “as our trained teams work to get tooling, equipment, and the facility space up to standard.”
The plant employs about 1,200 hourly workers, represented by UAW Local 2164, along with about 180 salaried workers.
U.S. sales of the Corvette sports car nearly doubled in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in 2020. GM sold 24,748 Corvettes through September, compared with 12,634 a year earlier, when production was paused for eight weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic.
GM idled production at the plant in March and again in October and November 2020 due to a parts shortage separate from the microchip crisis that has hampered auto output globally.
