Donaldson: Mr. McGill can you give me some background information on your life, where you lived prior to Miami or did you live in Miami your entire life and what do you do job-wise?

McGill: I’ve lived in Miami 10 years, I came here in August of 1982. I am the director of Boy Scouts for the South Florida Council. Before coming to Miami, I served in Boy Scouts in Lexington, Kentucky, before that in Tuscaloosa Alabama, before that in Memphis, Tennessee, before that in Knoxville, Tennessee, before that in Lake Charles, Louisiana and before that in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So I’ve been with the Boy Scouts professionally about 28 years. I grew up in Boy Scouting and that’s how I got to be a professional Boy Scout.

Donaldson: When did you first realize that Hurricane Andrew might hit Miami?

McGill: Probably through television as I think about it, really on Friday night it dawned on me that we were really going to have a hurricane and, no, I take that back it really was Saturday that it really sunk in because the media said it was coming. Brian Norcross said it was coming, if Brian Norcross says it, it must be true. So then, I knew Saturday night when I went to bed that it was probably coming and that I needed to get ready.

Donaldson: What preparations did you make?

McGill: I got up at 5:30 on Sunday morning and went to the store, trying to beat the large amount of people. I knew, when I went to bed Sunday night I knew that it was coming and I live in Kendall, of course I didn’t know that it was going to hit right through there, but then when I got up early Sunday morning I went to a Publix. I stood in front of a Publix for an hour. From 6:00 to 7:00 till it opened. When I got there, it was only 4 or 5 people. But at the time it opened at 7:00, it must have been three or four hundred people in line waiting for water and to buy things and supplies.

Donaldson: So, you were a believer?

McGill: I knew it was coming, and then I went to church, came back to my house and started putting all of our patio furniture, everything out in the yard into the house and then went to church and helped the church get ready for the hurricane. Then I came here to our office here, because we had no idea where it was going to hit. In fact, they thought it was going to hit in North Dade, and that’s where our office is, so we did the same thing. We moved all the furniture in our Boy Scout office into corners, and moved things that were likely to get damaged the best we could. So then I go back home and spent the rest of the night preparing my house putting things up and away.

Donaldson: What did you think it would be like before the storm? Had you any idea it would be this devastating?

McGill: Well, first of all, certainly not and on a personal level, we made the decision to stay in our house. And I live in a twentyyearold home and I felt like it was built very well. But the real decision was where to stay in the house and it turned out we stayed in a walkin closet because it had block walls on two sides and no windows. But no I had no idea, and no one did because I didn’t know what twohundred mile an hour winds would feel like.

Donaldson: Had you been through a storm before?

McGill: No, never, and had I ever been through a storm with twohundred mile an hour winds coming through my house I wouldn’t have stayed because it was frightening. It was terrifying in fact, for 3 1/2 hours we huddled in this walkin closet with a mattress between us and the door and I have two cats and we had our cats in there in a cage, but the house shook. It sounded like a train coming through our house. When I say shook, it literally shook. I thought the house would fly any minute and I was really terrified.

Donaldson: So, you had already made the decision to stay in the walkin closet, you didn’t have to leave one room and transfer anything?

McGill: No, we put our provisions, everything that we wanted to put in there: sleeping bags, water, flashlights, radio, all of those kinds of things were already in the walkin closet. So we set alarm and got up at 2:00 or 2:30 that morning and went into the walkin closet.

Donaldson: So, it was just your wife with you during the storm?

McGill: Yes, my wife and I. We were both very calm, but still it was a terrifying experience. Devastating. Personally, we lost little better than a third of our home. Our roof, which was a gravel roof, was gone down to the wood. We lost windows, three rooms were just trashed that we have to rebuild totally and then we had water throughout the house, major water damage. It took all of my patio, just took it away.

Donaldson: So, how the reconstruction efforts going?

McGill: Well, now its a little better than two months later and they’ve just started on my roof.

Donaldson: Did you stay in your house after the storm?

McGill: Yes, leaks and all.

Donaldson: How did it affect your business?

McGill: Yes, it affected us terribly, my business is the Boy Scouts. You know the hurricane really affected in a severe way from about 88th street south. This Boy Scouts Council, out of this office in Miami Lakes, we serve all of Broward County, all of Dade County and all of Monroe County. We’re called the South Florida Council. In our council we have about 36,000 scouts, 8,000 adult volunteer leaders and over 1,000 Boy Scout troops. And in the area most affected by the hurricane, in South Dade we lost 5,000 Scouts. When I say lost, I don’t mean they died. I mean that they were so severely affected by the storm that they can’t meet because there is no place to meet. And the leader’s homes, 1200 of them were totally demolished. So, in far South Dade, there is no more Scouting. And it affected us monetarily in a very significant way because we immediately lost about $150,000 in pledges from people from the devastated area that had committed monies to the Boy Scouts, but now obviously, they’re not going to be able to do either because they have lost their jobs or because of the severe impact on them personally. And we project that the loss, of the storm as direct result of the hurricane will be about a million dollars between now and the end of next year. So, in the next 15 or 16 months we’re going to lose about a million dollars in lost revenue, and in terms of additional expenses incurred because of our additional service to the South Dade area.

Donaldson: What were your main thoughts or concerns during the storm?

McGill: I thought about how lucky I was. I thought about the fact that every minute I was still there. That I wasn’t gone. I was thinking, I was very prayerful, I was very thankful that I had my wife with me, that I love dearly and we were together and I felt like even though I was terrified I never felt like was going to die. It just didn’t dawn on me that I could really die, even though I was terrified. But after the storm and we came out, like 6:00 the next morning and I was walking around in my house in four or five inches of water, furniture wet and carpets totally sopping, and glass and debris everyplace. Trees in the yard and no trees standing, every tree totally down and just demolished. Going outside and seeing that I had lost my roof and looking at the damage in the neighborhood and assessing the damage and that’s when I truly realized that we were very, very lucky. I had my life and my wife; the two things that matter. I had been spared. I knew sometime on Sunday how fortunate we were even though we lost much of our house that there were people who had lost so much more. I wasn’t homeless.

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

McGill: You know that I am a professional Boy Scout, we had prepared very well. I had a butane grill, batteries, radios and I had a television that I could hook up and play in the car so I could watch the news and see what was going on. It was very difficult to sleep because of the anxiety. The emotional effect of the hurricane was so strong. In fact, two months later, I am not sleeping very well.

Donaldson: Could you please describe or elaborate on the role that Boy Scouts has played in helping to rebuild the community?

McGill: I’ve already discussed some of it, but one of the things we are doing is helping most of our own people get back on their feet a little bit. We have volunteers unloading water and food, and getting food distributed, we were involved in numerous clearing projects, helping to distribute equipment that we owned and had. So we immediately began scouting in the tent cities in Harris Field in Homestead and in Davis Park in Florida City. We were the first program to start providing major programs in those two major tent cities. And we provided programs in the tent cities the entire time they were there. We instituted a hotline so that leaders who needed help could call in so we could communicate with them. We are providing uniforms and badges and books and all kinds of equipment and help to those that are in scouting programs to help them get back on their feet. The hotline helps in another way also. We’ve had a tremendous outpour of Boy Scouts across America. So we’ve linked up a matching program of matching a Boy Scout troop with a troop that was not affected by the hurricane with a troop that has been affected by the hurricane. They donate uniforms, books and supplies, but most of all moral support. So, we have literally had about 150 units that were damaged so now they have five or six new Boy Scout friends.

Donaldson: What is the most negative outcome you see as a result of Hurricane Andrew?

McGill: Well, I would rather look at the positives. I mean I think that there are so many positives that have come out of it like people in my neighborhood. Now I know all of my neighbors, people who I never knew before. Everyone pitched in to help. I think the hurricane brought out the best in Miami. As sad as it is, there is always some good to come out of a disaster. A new sense of community has developed, especially in the affected areas. The negatives are the tremendous of emotional damage done to thousands and thousands of people. We need to build back and build back correctly. We need to build back businesses to get jobs back, because people need jobs.

Donaldson: If there is a theme for this hurricane, what would it be?

McGill: Now more than ever, now more than ever we need to rebuild, now more than ever we need this community spirit, now more than ever we need the jobs that are at risk, we need our school systems, we need the Boy Scouts, we need the infrastructure. We need the things that cause a quality of life. You can live in a house or you can live in a neighborhood, but if there is nothing to do or to bind you together, then there is not the good things that make our lives worth living. Now more than ever we need each other.