Sevastopulos: When did you first realize that Hurricane Andrew was going to hit?

Laughlin: We started first making preparations at the police station I believe on the 23rd, I had been told through people that claimed to be reliable sources on about the 21st that it was going to be staying on the course, the westward track and hit Miami.

Sevastopulos: What preparations did you make?

Laughlin: I personally did nothing at my house. My wife and my neighbor put up all our storm shutters. We had storm shutters all the way around. For one reason or another, I never got around to doing it so my wife and the neighbor that was going to be staying at my house did all of it. The preparations I did concerned work, making sure the police station was taken care of. Making sure that everything was started because that day I was in charge.

Sevastopulos: What did you think it would be like before the storm?

Laughlin: A very, very bad thunderstorm, a lot of wind. I felt that there would be a lot of stuff flying through the air and a lot of traffic signs and lights knocked down. I thought it was going to be a category 3, maybe category 4. I thought there would be a lot more flooding than there was. I thought the storm surge was going to take out Saga Bay and I truly expected a lot more deaths than occurred.

Sevastopulos: Where were you during the hurricane?

Laughlin: In my house, going from room to room.

Sevastopulos: Who was with you?

Laughlin: My wife, my two children, and neighbors family  the husband, wife and their three kids a dog, maybe two dogs and one cat.

Sevastopulos: What happened to you during the hurricane?

Laughlin: Physically, mentally or what?

Sevastopulos: To you personally. What was going with you?

Laughlin: Well, during the hurricane we first woke up to the sound of aluminum banging. I figured my screenedin patio was being blown away. Walked outside and then it did not, so we went inside to the living room and saw that my neighbor was trying to hold the door shut. It was double doors and I went to help him out and for I have no idea how long a length of time, we stayed there trying to hold those doors closed. Finally we gave up on the doors and evacuated to the garage. We stayed in there a while. When I first walked in the access way to the crawl space was flapping with the wind. After being in there for a while I noticed that the ceiling of the garage right over the garage door was starting to lift off. I was afraid the garage was going to blow away the roof. Then a little while later I look up through that crawl space and I could now see lightning through there and that the only way I could see lightning was if I had in fact lost part of my roof and that was my first true moment of I’m not going to say panic but an intense case of fear that this was a lot worse and going to get a lot worse than I had anticipated.

Sevastopulos: Have you ever been in a hurricane before?

Laughlin: Not as an adult, but yes, as a child.

Sevastopulos: How was it the same or different?

Laughlin: As a child I had no cares or responsibilities. It was just a big, old thunderstorm. As an adult, my feel was that my family was going to be injured and that I wouldn’t be able to take care of them. So that’s the main difference, the responsibility angle.

Sevastopulos: What did you do right after the Hurricane?

Laughlin: Myself and the other guy that was staying with us we walked out. First we walked into the living room and noticed that the family room and the kitchen was missing the roof completely. The tresses were up there but the roof and the drywall ceiling collapsed. About half of the living room was missing wood and ceiling. We walked around and I walked around the backyard and I noticed that the neighborhood looked like it was when we first bought the house which we were the first one in the neighborhood and all the fences were gone, the bushes were gone, all the hedges, swing sets, everything was gone. It was just like someone had dropped a bomb in our vicinity and it was just flat.

Sevastopulos: What was the first thing you did?

Laughlin: Put on a jacket because I was cold! I was just walking around looking at everything. Then I knew I had to go to work so I got my uniforms ready and put them in the car.

Sevastopulos: What was the first thing you thought about?

Laughlin: I didn’t want to go back to work. I knew I had to go to work and my wife was going to be pissed at me for going off to work and I didn’t want to.

Sevastopulos: What was your first week like after the hurricane?

Laughlin: The whole first week, what was it like? It was having to work seven, I’m sorry, having to work all the time, twelve hours and not being able to work on my house at all. It was frustrating for my wife to do all the work at the house and I didn’t do anything because by the time I got off work it was time to put the kids down. We had moved into a hotel, so it was very frustrating. As far as work goes, that was also frustrating because I was kept inside the station to do administrative stuff and I wanted to go out and patrol around so it was very frustrating.

Sevastopulos: Did you receive help after the hurricane?

Laughlin: Well, my insurance company wrote us out a check for additional living expenses. Then we had to figure out a place down here in south Dade County that would take the checks. Most of the help I received, O.K. my brother and brotherinlaw came over and brought over some food, some water, and some stuff to help around the house, some plastic for the roof and a chain saw, and some other kind of stuff like that. The Police Department, surprisingly came through and helped the families like myself who lost our houses, they provided I like to call them “Metro Movers” they actually rounded up people from other departments and the County, the Federal  the DEA, the FBI, the ATF, that actually went in and moved people out of their houses. My wife packed up and on about, I say about the end of the first week, maybe the start of the second week, “Metro Movers” came in and moved all my stuff that was salvageable to a warehouse up in North Dade County. So that took care of that responsibility. The Police Department also I didn’t have to spend any money those first two weeks  my family was eating dinner over there everyday and I was eating all my meals at the Police Station because it was all being brought in. My wife and kids were eating, I have no idea where they were eating. The Police Department as my employer took care of the people remarkably well.

Sevastopulos: Did you provide help to others? Were you able to?

Laughlin: The second day, I think it was the second day, my wife and I talked and we knew that our house was going to be gutted out and would not be back in it for several months but we figured that the other house of the people that were staying with us we could move into their house for a couple of months, so we went in there and while they were out making their own arrangements we went in there and cleaned out three bedrooms, tried to dry a lot of stuff. We tried to make three bedrooms combined into one bedroom so that we could get our stuff, our salvageable stuff into their house, not knowing that the Police Department was going to move me to North Dade. We dried up the three bedrooms and boarded up a window, took out the wet carpeting and stuff like that. That really is the extent of my personal aid. I couldn’t help anybody while I was at work because I wasn’t allowed to leave the station for twelve hours a day.

Sevastopulos: What kind of effect has the hurricane had on your daily life?

Laughlin: Because we have gone to twelve hour shifts, I don’t see my family. Plus, I had to move up to Broward County, so in addition to the twelve hours at work here, I have an hour travel each way so I’m up to fourteen hours. On weekdays, on a good day, I only see my kids fifteen minutes. On the weekends, they can stay up later so I can see them for an hour or two. Now, that we’re five days off (five days on), I can see them when they get home from school two days a week. But we’ve been doing a lot of shopping, so I haven’t had much interactions with my kids since the hurricane. My wife and I, when I get home from work she’ll tell me all about their day, and that will take several hours. I’m not exercising and I put on at least ten pounds maybe fifteen since the hurricane cause on these twelve hour shifts I’m now eating on a more regular basis than I was before, eating breakfast at work, lunch at work. I have moved up to Broward County temporarily and if I would not have contracted with my builder to fix my house as quickly as I had done, I probably would move up to Broward County. I’ve wanted to move up there for a while and now that I have the opportunity to move up there, finding out how nice it is up there. But because I’m found out what it’s like in other places besides Dade County, it’s increasing my urge even more to get out of here.

Sevastopulos: What is your frame of mind now, 3 ½ months later, as compared to right after the hurricane?

Laughlin: Long pause. I’m less stressed. I’m very relaxed, right after the hurricane. I was... I don’t want to speak for everybody I was observing people at work, including myself, was trying to be extra polite, so that we wouldn’t shoot somebody. I wanted to shoot the copy machine because it wouldn’t give me copies one day. And I was wondering if I could get away with it, too! But I’m more relaxed now it’s easy going, I’m trying to get my life back on track, it is more or less back on track except my travel time to work and to where I’m living at.

Sevastopulos: Has the hurricane significantly changed your plans for the future?

Laughlin: My plans for the future are to move out of Dade County, hopefully in about another 2 ½ years to 3 years. My long term plan is not changed. It has changed my ability to make the plans so far as being paid a substantial amount of money by the insurance company to rebuild my house, to replace all my personal property and I will use what I don’t spend on moving. Plus it will ultimately increase the value of my house because I’m getting all brand new stuff  the fixtures are all brand new, the appliances brand new, and I’m adding on to my house. So financially it has been very good to me. Financial.

Sevastopulos: When did you first go back to work?

Laughlin: The first day. I went back to work, I got there about three or four in the afternoon that first day.

Sevastopulos: What was it like going back?

Laughlin: I didn’t want to be there, so I didn’t stay. I got to work and found out that I really wasn’t needed. What they wanted me to do was purely administrative and I asked them, ‘Hey, do you really need me?’, They said, ‘No,’ so I left after a couple of hours. I discovered that between my house and the station it was the northern wall of the eye and the amount of damage decreased farther north and there were people at the station that were virtually untouched as far as the hurricane goes and that was kind of irritating that I could suffer that much and they nothing. But there were other people at work who lost more than me and I was proud that they came to work.

Sevastopulos: Please describe the impact of the hurricane on your job responsibilities.

Laughlin: The immediate change was I was taken off the road. I’ve been on the road virtually all my career and was taken off and put on administrative function. Basically I was in charge of roll call at the end of the shift, scheduling everybody. So I was confined as opposed to let loose and do what I’ve been trained to do all these years. I was brought in just doing paper work, busy work.

Sevastopulos: Your time frame. You were working more hours?

Laughlin: Oh, yes. Originally we were working seven days a week, I think that went on for two weeks, seven days a week, twelve hours a day. And then for two weeks, they let us have one day off with twelve hour shifts. Then after about a month or so, they resolved it down to five days a week with twelve hour shifts and we’ve been that way ever since.

Sevastopulos: What was your schedule like before?

Laughlin: Five days a week, eight hours a day, with Wednesdays and Thursdays off. Immediately after the hurricane, we lost all our days off and then we went to different days off other than your normally scheduled ones and it wasn’t always consistent for those two weeks. One day you would have Monday and then the next week you would have Thursday or whatever. So I was putting in four hours of overtime a day plus those days I was working my days off, twelve hours.

Sevastopulos: During the course of your days/nights on the job, describe your reactions/feelings as you encountered members of the community.

Laughlin: I had no contact with the community while I was at work, that first month and a half. No contact whatsoever at work. I would meet them at the hotel as I was passing but that was just a brief ‘how are ya doing?’ A lot of the people I met subsequently after I got on the road people, or even today, I stop people and ask them why haven’t they got their tag or some pidley thing like this when their tag has been expired for four months and they go, ‘Well, I haven’t time because of the hurricane’ and my reaction is a lot of people... you can see who can cope under stressful situations and who can’t. Some people crack under just a little bit of pressure. I’m talking about people who have lost a tree or got a couple windows broken, they are completely devastated, and then there is other people who lost everything, that it is the same as before  they are going on with their life. The people that don’t deal with stress, I have little patience with those people.

Sevastopulos: What you have encountered and who you have encountered in what ways has that effected your feelings about your own personal situation?

Laughlin: Luckier than some, worst off than others. No matter how bad I feel that my house was destroyed and my own personal situation is this people that are worst off than me, there is also a lot of people better off than me but from my observations, from a financial point of view, those people whose houses were less destroyed than mine are worst off because they are having trouble with the insurance companies. As with my house they just walked in and wrote the whole thing off. So I was only dealing with the insurance company, once they finally came out to my house, for twenty minutes. Other people are still dealing with these people.

Sevastopulos: Are there any positive outcomes you have seen as a result of the hurricane?

Laughlin: Ah, yes. Financial. I am one of those people who are making a profit off the hurricane. I’m getting virtually a brand new house, all new appliances, buy everything to replace the new stuff. It’s a beautiful way to get rid of all the old stuff that was hanging around the house that for one reason or another you don’t want to throw away. Now, when the mold starts to grow, you have to throw it away. So, I guess there is some positive out of it. Mostly, financial. I also found out that my family can be really supportive and get along without me. My wife, I have to give her full credit, she moved us out of the house. She took care of everything with the house and I didn’t have to bother with it at all.

Sevastopulos: Is there anything else you would like to tell me that I haven’t asked you?

Laughlin: It was a terrible feeling walking out or going from one room to the other and as you’re evacuating from one to the other, look up and see how much of your house missing and know that you’re still not through with the hurricane. And then when I originally walked out and saw exactly how trashed my house was, it was not a pleasant feeling. It’s at the pit of the stomach kind of thing. Then you walk out and see all the other neighborhoods, too, all the other houses in the neighborhood and wonder if someone is trapped inside, so we through and looked through some of the houses to make sure nobody was trapped inside the house and there weren’t. It’s just the mass of destruction.