Tahada: How long have you been in the position of VicePresident at the Seaquarium?

Howard: Just about one year, I came down here from Orlando last year about this time as we were getting ready to put a news show in the park and became permanent on the staff here at the Seaquarium about the first of January. So I’m coming up on my first year.

Tahada: Have you had previous experience at other seaquarium’s, zoos or park around the US?

Howard: I was in the Sea World organization starting in 1972 so if twenty years counts as previous experience, yes I have.

Tahada: Have you ever had any previous experience dealing with any sort of natural disasters before in the Sea World Organization?

Howard: Certainly nothing of this magnitude, although for a time I was President of Sea World of Ohio, up near Cleveland and that’s a park that closes every fall and reopens every spring so getting a park ready to reopen to the pubic is certainly not something I haven’t done before. Plus I was part of the opening team at Sea World of Florida and the opening team at Boardwalk and Baseball so getting ready to welcome the public and all of the heartburn and the stomach churning that goes along with that is something that I’m not unaccustomed to.

Tahada: Typically during the hurricane season is there a hurricane policy that comes into effect?

Howard: Yes, We have what we call a hurricane plan and every year we review the hurricane plan, starting about six weeks before the hurricane (season) starts, we did that this year as we normally would and a lot of times the updating is simple things like new telephone numbers, someone may have moved or in the case of our hurricane plan my name wasn’t in the plan last year and my home telephone wasn’t in there so it was added this year. So there’s a lot of fine tuning that goes into the hurricane plan but basically it doesn’t change a great deal unless you’ve added a building or made some other major change that needs to be taken into account. It’s a very comprehensive plan and it deals with all sorts of things depending upon the level of warning. As you know as hurricanes approach the warnings increase and every time we go from one warning to the next most severe warning that triggers another series of things so it is a plan that is; Boy it was sure handy to have had it this time because rather than people standing around guessing or stepping all over one another trying to figure out what to do. It’s like general quarters on a ship everybody knows what their assignments are and what they’re supposed to do as we go to the next closer warning then that triggers another series of things to do, everybody knows what they are because they’re all written down all the assignments are made and so on. And it deals with everything from putting in extra animals food or in the case of very severe hurricane, such as this one, having animal food located on the mainland because we weren’t sure of what the circumstances will be here, lots and lots of little things.

Tahada: It seems as if there is a graduated process as the likelihood of the hurricane becomes more apparent?

Howard: There’s not only the degree of likelihood that it well hit but of course about 36 to 48 hours before Hurricane Andrew hit it was pretty obvious that Hurricane Andrew was going to hit. So then there’s another set of steps that have to do with severity of the hurricane. Getting hit by a five is a lot different then getting hit by a three. This was obviously a hurricane coming so that set of decisions had already been made and we were at what I would call maximum preparedness dead cinch that we were going to get something severe whether we were going to get hit as directly as we did you can’t tell because the way hurricanes get squirrelly as they approach. But it was obvious that it was going to be a bad day at the very least. But as the hurricane approached on Sunday evening a number of us were here, a number of us were not here. Part of the hurricane plan is in certain areas to send people home to take care of their homes but then there is core group of people who are here and about 10:30-11:00 on Sunday night we were here and when we realized from the weather services that this was going to be at least a force four hurricane and probably, possibly a force five hurricane we made some last minute decisions which included: One, taking all of the people off the island, normally we would leave people her for perhaps up through a three when it got to be a four we elected to take all our people off the island because some bad things were going to happen and we certainly didn’t want people things to be included in that and there is really nothing one can do for the animals or anything when the wind is blowing 150 miles per hour and you’ve got three feet of water on the island anyway . So the second piece of that was that we had a place in Coral Gable at our corporate offices at Wometco and we put these people up for the night. We also had a boat and some supplies staged on the mainland because we were fearful that the Causeway might not be passable to get back to the island right after the storm which of course we needed to do. So we had a boat staged over there that could return these people to Virginia Key, That way assuming that the Causeway might not be passable, as it turned out, although the Causeway was blocked from routine traffic we were able to send the people back to the island right after the storm and we didn’t need to use that boat. But those are some of the kinds of preparations, we had generators that we had spare; Backup big ones that we had staged on the mainland in a safe place because we knew we were going to have an electric power problem but rather than bring the generators out here and risk having them damaged or submerged or something we have those staged on the main land. So this sounds like it all went very smoothly and for all practical purposes it did but there are always last minute decisions to be made and what not that nobody can really write into a plan. We some people who were intent on staying on the island and literally had to be pretty close to ordered off and we’re glad we did that.

Tahada: Did the employees feel a great attachment or fear towards leaving the animals alone in the storm?

Howard: That’s true however I guess if I could chose to be someplace in a hurricane it would be underwater in the whale bowl, surrounded by a huge concrete structure and so we weren’t particularly concerned about the animals in so far as the storm per se was concerned. We were concerned about the electrical system, about the circulation of pumps and that sort of thing. We were concerned about flying debris and what not, which of course is going to happen, so we had a few concerns but we weren’t concerned that the animals were going to be hurt. We were more concerned about being able to get back here after the storm and assess what problems had resulted and then what we could do about it quickly.

Tahada: The animals were the first priority then?

Howard: They were glad to see us back and they were hungry and they were agitated but you must understand that the animals are out in the weather anyway, they spend their lives out in the weather so weather phenomena are not something that is all that unusual for animals.

Tahada: Did you notice changes in their behavior? Did they sense the hurricane?

Howard: Frankly everyone is so busy well before the hurricane is here that while we’re feeding the animals and making sure that things that won’t blow into the pools, we didn’t pay all that much attention to them they’re fine, they were the least of our worries as we got ready, rather it’s to take things that might blow in the pools or fall in the pools that we had to be concerned about and that was an all hands evolution. Believe me we were there late into the evening continuing to work on that.

Tahada: Is there any policy, depending on the force of the hurricane, to release the animals? Would you release the animals?

Howard: Well we moved some of the dolphins that are in the back lagoon out to a back area which is in a more controlled area because that back lagoon so very close to sea level so that knowing that there would be tidal surge we were pretty sure that we would get some debris and some water that wasn’t of good quality. Of course we control all of our water very careful because the water in Biscayne Bay, well, when they close the beaches and don’t let us swim in it then we know that it is a little disagreeable. These animals are not permitted to be freed. All these marine mammals are federally controlled by The National Marine Fishery Service, in accordance with laws under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And the Marine Mammal Commission defines what the situation is with these animals. So it would be unlawful for us to release an animal without a permit and permits would not be granted in these cases because these animals would probably not survive in the wild. You may remember a short time ago we some dolphins out here on Key Biscayne, they got quite a lot of press coverage and one of the animals had a liver problem and needed to be returned because it wasn’t going to survive and probably the other two, They were losing weight out there. Releasing the animals was not an option, for the safety of the animals; moreover they are as safe if not safer here in a hurricane then they would be in the wild.

Tahada: Do any of the other animals, get moved or did the tanks get covered or did they stay in their tanks?

Howard: They stayed right where they were and that is the best possible place for them. There again the animals that are underwater are in a good place.

Tahada: You mentioned the Federal Commission for these animals, I would assume then that beside your own Seaquarium plans in lieu of hurricanes there some sort of federal plans that go into effect as well?

Howard: No, our charge from the federal government through a variety of organizations is to provide the facilities as prescribed by the Marine Mammals Commission which already defines the size of the pools for certain animals. It defines things like the amount of hall out area that a sea lion requires and if you have six sea lions you are required to have Xamount of hall out area for the animals to crawl out of the water and so on. So all those things are already codified and they don’t change in the event of a storm.

Tahada: You seem to suggest that the structure itself around Seaquarium was solid; you could count on it in the hurricane. Did the structures in Seaquarium throughout the different pavilions hold up well?

Howard: Well, certainly all the performing areas did. We had some small problems and we have been in the process of repairing those. This park was built originally in 1955 and as things have been added over the years they built things real sturdy. The whale bowl, as an example, is an enormous lump of concrete with sloping angles and well braced and what not and the roof is made with steel beams and so generally speaking, while I wouldn’t venture to say that all of these structures were built to “ withstand hurricanes” they were built to last a long time and to withstand a lot of weather and to withstand a lot of public wearandtear and three or four thousand people sitting up on them and so on and so forth so they are very very sturdy. Its like Joe Robbie Stadium didn’t blow over, it’s on a smaller scale obviously but it’s kind of the same thing. Now some signs would come down and if you had a wooden wall it may have blown away or a fence came down, that sort of thing. We had an awful lot of that obviously. The major structures we didn’t have any particular problem with, other then flooding and things slamming into the sides of them, but some concrete work and a coat of paint fixes that up. We’ve gone through about two hundred and fifty trillion quarts of paint since the storm. We’ve painted, as I like to say, everything that isn’t moving.

Tahada: I don’t know how you want to answer this question, but I have to ask, the animals themselves, did you lose any?

Howard: Yes, we lost five sea lions to a lightning strike. The sea lions were put inside a structure that we have that is designed to house the sea lions. In there, there are some chain link enclosures that each animal has. He has his own place to go when he wants to be by himself and not be nuzzled. A lightning bolt hit that building in some fashion and went through some of these metal structures. Of the twentyfive sea lions that we had we did lost five. One was a young animal, two were animals from our feeder pool, and two were very old animals that are no longer performing or doing anything really they were just living here. We have a policy of never euthanizing an animal, so we have some animals here that are very old and they are sort of in retirement and get a good meal three or four times a day and a lot of companionship. They are animals frankly that had they not been here they long ago been dead if they had been in the wild. Not that it is ever good to lose an animal we didn’t lose any show animals. As far as the cetaceans are concerned, the killer whale and the dolphins we lost none of those. We didn’t lose any manatees. The only mammals that we lost were the five sea lions. We lost quite a few fish. I mentioned before the generators and all of that. When some of the fish systems were down, whether it be from flooding, which will short out pumps, or simply lose of electricity because of course the island lost its electricity long before we could get back out here with those generators and get them hooked up. Some of our fish systems went down and were down long enough that we lost a substantial number of fish. As we are talking right now, we have a collecting trip down in the Bahamas collecting fish through the courtesy of the Bahamas government that will restock our reef tanks and our various fish exhibits. We lost quite a few sharks in our shark channel because that was a system that went down. Basically when you can’t recirculate the water and oxygenate it the water becomes essentially without oxygen, they suffocate. There are not a lot of people that bemoan the death of sharks but it was unfortunate we had some beautiful specimens in there. We have about twenty in there now that we have acquired since the storm and our ultimate goal is to get back up to about fifty sharks in the shark channel. We don’t except sharks that are three, four, five feet long we want them seven, eight, nine feet long so we have to get them as we can.

Tahada: In the long term, beyond Andrew, how would you say the storm will affect the Seaquarium and is there concern that it may take awhile for people to return to the Seaquarium?

Howard: That is sort of a semi marketing question and marketing answers are sometimes cloudy but let me put it this way we have been able to do some things in the park that we would not have been able to do had it not been for the hurricane. As one example, our reef tank was full of fish, most of which died. The remaining fish were few enough in number that we could take them out of that tank and move them into another tank in a back area much much smaller and, drain that tank for the first time in twentyfive to thirty years. There are new surfaces that are available now that weren’t available the last time that tank was down. That tank has been given a brand new surface, it was drained, it was cleaned, it was coated, and we installed new windows in the tank because the windows were thirty years old. I don’t care how careful you are thirty year old windows get scratched, there are brand new windows now and if you stand at the window you feel like a scuba diver it’s like there is nothing between you and the water. When are collecting trip comes back we will have a whole new host of animals in there. That’s something we wouldn’t have been able to do had if it not been for the hurricane and there are a lot of things like that around the park. Plus we have all new shows, during the time we have been down it provides time for that. Usually we change one show at a time, every six months or so we will introduce a new show in one of these show areas. When you are down for ninety days you can write new scripts, new music, new sets, everything and come back with all brand new shows. On the assumption we will be able to convey that to the resident market, then we believe that the tourist who are coming to South Florida, particularly the international tourists, will get the message through the waitress at the restaurant, or the front desk person at the hotel or a cab driver or a bus driver or somebody like that that the Miami Seaquarium is open and is better then ever. The only area were we will really have a small bit a difficulty in the next period of time is in that a hundred year old tree that is gone is not replaceable. We have done a lot of different kinds of things and new things with landscaping and we certainly replaced a lot of trees and we snatched a lot of them up that would have been goners. We were out there watering them until we could get in there and pull them back up to revive them. It certainly wasn’t a disaster for that stand point but it does look a little different. We have had to do some other things, we have a few more fences were we use to have shrubbery but the park is still beautiful and it’s going to be just fine. There is plenty of shade and it is a nice cool attractive place just like it always was. We weren’t hit that badly

Tahada: Did the hurricane itself pull the Seaquarium community, its workers and employees together?

Howard: I have always thought that it was a close interactive group because, unlike some of the parks around Florida which are so huge that it’s like being in the army, we’re much smaller and so we have that benefit. You are quite correct and perceptive; the challenge of a disaster has its way of creating different kinds of relationships between people when something dreadful happens to virtually everybody. Chemistry among human beings being what it is a lot of that happens. I think probably the best aspect of this for me as a management person was to watch a lot of people pitch in and do what needed to be done both before the hurricane, but more importantly after the hurricane. Of course we closed, obviously, and we still haven’t opened, we open here in another couple of weeks. I think the fact people that worked in the gift shop became gardeners, people that worked in food service, of course with no customers coming in the front door all of your food service people are without customers, our foodservice people became painters. If you went out in the park today you would see people from these various disciplines, when the park is open, now doing things to help get us ready. They don’t see that as a big deal, they are doing what they need to do to help. It was important to us because it enabled us to keep almost everybody on the payroll because there was such an enormous amount of work to be done. While we had to lay off a few, because there were some people for example who just weren’t capable of going out in the sun and becoming a gardener or a painter, some older people or other circumstances. Byinlarge we were able to keep the payroll up and everybody’s personal cash flow then could flow right on through until we would reopen. It was good for them from that stand point. It was certainly good for us because they are people who care and we’re kind of having’ fun, although I think after painting for two months if you didn’t really care for painting it would get a little old. I think a lot of people now show new respect for people they thought maybe not particularly adept at various sundry things. A lot of people with talents that we didn’t know existed have surfaced.

Tahada: You have talked about the plan, looking back is there anything you would have changed in dealing with the hurricane?

Howard: Yes, we are going to revise the plan in one important way. We are going to make some substantial changes in the post hurricane part of the plan. I think you’d find that if you looked hurricane plans for lots of businesses you’d find the emphasis is on getting ready for the hurricane. There is very little having to do with what you do after a hurricane hits. You get ready five or six or seven times for every time you actually have to use the post hurricane part of the plan. We have certainly learned some things that need to be incorporated in the plan as part of that After the Storm is Gone section. A lot of that was really speculation. For example, we had two and a half to three feet of salt water over the island and while you can understand that from a practical stand point you don’t know exactly what that does and what that means and that is an area where we have to record now some of the things that we have learned after actually being hit with a hurricane and put that in there. Do this if a hurricane is coming to get ready and if the hurricane hits now here’s your roadmap to react to the aftermath of a hurricane.

Tahada: Was there a plan for after the hurricane?

Howard: There was a plan for after the hurricane in the sense that having generators standing by is both a pre and a post issue. You have to get it ready and you have to have it in the right place and know that it’s working, that’s part of getting ready for a hurricane. Getting it out here and getting it in the right place and knowing where its most important to put it and what to hook up to it is something that I don’t think we had quite as a good of handle on as we do now. Something as dramatic as this, if I tried to tell you that we didn’t learn anything you’d know I was kidding you. We learned a great deal. We know, for example, that we now need more generators because we would have not lost as many fish had we had more generators and more small generators that we could hook up to small systems. You learn things like that and we’ll have that as part of the revised plan for the next time that we get nailed.

Tahada: Is there anything else you would like to add that I didn’t cover that you think might be of interest?

Howard: People would think I am crazy but in some respects the hurricane was a net plus. It was a plus from a personnel stand point. There are a lot of people around here now who are highly respected, not to suggest that they weren’t respected before they were just here doing their job and nobody paid much attention. We now know that soandso who works over there was a real hero during the storm and after the storm and got in and helped clean out dead sharks when nobody wanted to get in there and do it because it was the second day and it was not real pleasant down in there. This is a person who doesn’t have anything to do with that department but we needed people. Another thing would be the physical appearance of the park. In my wildest dreams I would have never undertaken the magnitude of paint jobs, just to pick one thing that we have been able to do on this park. I could go on but there are lots of things which are better then they have been for a long long time because were a business that’s open 365 days a year and to do something dramatic in this park you really only have two choices; you can wall it off and say “pardon my dust” and do what ever you have to do behind a wall and lose part of your park for the time you are doing that, or you can try to do it in fifty little pieces between seventhirty at night and eightthirty the following morning when you have to reopen the park. A lot of the things that we were able to do we were able to focus on because we didn’t have our park guests here and we were able to bring in heavy equipment and do a lot of those kinds of things. In that respect, yes, I think it has been a net plus and I think when the park opens on the fifteenth of December people are going to come in and they are going to say “wow” because there isn’t going to be, unlike with the Zoo and Parrot Jungle and some of the other attractions, there aren’t going to be parts of this park that are still closed. When we open on the fifteenth; now admitably we are the last one to get open, we open about the same time as the Zoo does but the Zoo has already said it’s not going to be fully open because they just can’t, but when we open we will be fully open. All of our restaurants, all of our shows, all of our exhibits, everything will be in full operation and looking real nice. The kids that work in the park are really excited, it’s hard to hold them down now that we are getting close because they are all anxious to get us ready and get this open.