Heil: Can you tell me a little about yourself, where you’re from and what you were doing during the hurricane?

Piet: I’m from Delray Beach. I have a friend who’s from South Miami. He called me from Paris to take care of his estate down there (South Miami) because he wasn’t coming back for about a week. So I went down there and it was three days after the hurricane had already passed through. I had to take care of the property with a couple of young high school fellows. We started cleaning up all the trees and it took us about two and a half weeks.

Heil:What was your reaction to the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew?

Piet:I was amazed at the extent of the damage over such a large area.

Heil: What was the scope of the service you offered and did you have any prior experience in this line of work?

Piet:Well, I did some construction work. I just went out and got a chainsaw and basically just started working. When you have a disaster like this you just have a lot of physical work that’s necessary to clean it up. That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t take a genius to do it.

Heil:Did you get any other jobs?

Piet: Yes, we ended up doing about four or five of his neighbors yards. I ended up getting people with heavy equipment so we subsequently branched off into the neighborhood. We got another eight or ten more houses.

Heil:How did you determine the job estimates?

Piet: This was for a friend of mine. He basically hired me for a flat rate to coordinate this from Delray Beach. The phones were out and there was no power in the area. It was hard for people to get around in the area. There were gasoline shortages and water shortages. So every day I was coming down with a car loaded with supplies (canned goods, water and so forth, tools and man power).

Heil: Did you hire any employees?

Piet:I had a couple of high school guys. Some days I had three and some days I had four.

Heil:What kind of wages did you pay them?

Piet:They made ten bucks an hour. They were very happy with that.

Heil: What kind of profit did you make on these jobs?

Piet: Again I was getting a flat rate. He hired me for five thousand dollars for a month to coordinate the whole thing for him. My job was to make sure he didn’t get ripped off or over pay. That’s why I hired people up north and brought them down rather than hire people who just came around.

Heil: Do you still have any jobs in progress?

Piet: Now I’m in the process of finding contracting jobs for a licensed contractor from Broward county.

Heil: How long do you think that work will last you?

Piet: I think the work is gonna be there for a while. Probably a year.

Heil:Is there anything else you would like to add?

Piet: I just think that its been a very interesting experience just to be involved in it. The extent of the damage I’ve seen is horrendous. The further south I go, as far south as Homestead, it looks like an atomic bomb hit it.