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Tony Sardinas works for Bayshore Equipment Distributors. They are a distribution firm for restaurant equipment. He is an Account Executive. He handles all of Dade County and he insures that the sales go up to a $1 million dollars a year in ice machines. They are a distribution firm (a wholesaler), so they sell to the restaurant equipment dealer, which in turn sells to the end user. Oliva: When did you first realize that Hurricane Andrew might hit Miami? Sardinas: When did I realize it? The hurricane hit on the 24th, which was a Sunday. It didn't really start ... I kind of like to trace the hurricanes and I stayed up to part with the current events. So, what I did, on the 24th, on Friday, it was the first time that I saw the hurricane and it was being broadcasted as being a possibility that it could hit the east coast of the United States. Saturday, what I did was that I assisted a friend of mine in cutting down some of his trees. This was something that we had planned weeks in advance and luckily we just came about that it was that day. Saturday night we got together, a couple of friends of mine, and we spoke about the hurricane. We said that it is a coincidence that if it does hit, we did trim this particular tree. Sunday when I woke up at 8:00 a.m., I knew that it was coming, there was no doubt. I stayed up to part with the news, and when we knew that it was officially at us and that it was projected to hit this portion of the east coast, Florida, for example, what we did was that I started to do all kinds of preparations for my home. Oliva: What kind of preparations did you make? Sardinas: I did a number of preparations. My first objective was to finished what we were not able to finish on Saturday. We did cut the tree, but instead of putting the shrubbery in front of the house, we had to remove it and take it to the local dump. Because if we didn't, it was very futile what we did. From his house to the dump it was like a mile. On Sunday, I got a friend who had a, like a flat-bed, and he helped us. We finished the job and then, we ran over to the hardware store and we picked up some supplies that I needed for the house here. My sister was visiting from out of town. What I told her to do was to get up on Sunday and start buying supplies. Because we knew it was bad. At that time it was a category 4. If it did hit us we were to be knocked out for a while. Oliva: What did you think it would be like before the storm? Sardinas: I had never been through a hurricane before. So, I really didn't have any preconceived notions. I knew there was going to be a lot of wind, the possibility of losing your home ... We decided through all that that we were to ride it out because we had a 3 week-old child and actually I didn't have any other recourse than stay home. I also have some pets and I wasn't going to leave them alone in the house. I couldn't take them to a shelter. I was sure that my house, because it was an old structure, it was built to withstand this as it had before. Oliva: Where were you during the hurricane? Sardinas: I was here at home. We situated a place in one of the sections of the house. It was the nursery. Because it was far away from any trees. I got a big ficus tree in the backyard and I was afraid that if that thing did fall, which it did, it was a potential of losing half of the house. I was very lucky that it fell away from the house instead of toward the house. It missed my house officially by 8 feet. Oliva: Who was with you during the hurricane? Sardinas:During the hurricane I was with Matilde, my son Anthony and my two Rottweilers, Mack and Sargent. Oliva:What happened to you during the hurricane? Sardinas:Because of the preparations I was confident that the house was secure. So, I continued to relay on what I had done, I continued to do preparations. We prepared a couple of areas that we could evacuate to inside the house in case that the hurricane did hit. Oliva:What were your main concerns or thoughts during the hurricane? Sardinas: If I did lose the tree, which I did, and if it did hit the house, which thanks God it didn't, but if it did, it would allowed the hurricane to enter the house. My main concerns were safety of the house and the residents of it. Oliva:What did you do right after the hurricane? Sardinas:The hurricane basically subsided at approximately 7:00 a.m. Monday morning, and what I did was to take the dogs for a walk around the block. Because first of all, they had reacted properly, which was that they did not bark, they were very good during the storm. So I let them exercise their frustrations. I toured the neighborhood, and at the same time I checked the house and I checked my neighbor's. The neighborhood was very badly hit. Oliva:What was the first thing you thought about? Sardinas: I was very surprised that it was over as quickly as it was, because the hurricane started hitting at approximately midnight and at 2:00 o'clock in the morning it was when the winds ... you really felt them, they were fierce. At approximately 3:30 it was when it really started blowing, so we evacuated to our first area and preceded to ride it out. When I thought that we were going to get the worst of it, it was basically over. Around 7:00 a.m. it was when everybody started to walk out of their houses. You basically didn't what was happening. I had boarded up my windows so I really didn't have very many wholes that I could see. When I heard voices outside I knew that besides myself there were other people. Oliva: What was the first week like after the hurricane? Sardinas: We were very fortunate during and we were very fortunate after the hurricane. Approximately at 3:00 we lost power, that was 3:00 o'clock Monday morning. We did no regain power until approximately 4:00 Tuesday morning. We were only out for 26 hours. In the very beginning what we did was continue with our daily functions. We made some calls. We never lost the phones. We made some calls and made sure that everybody was alright. We tried to get everything together. Oliva:Did you receive any help during the hurricane? Sardinas: We all got together the very first hours after the storm. I went over my brother's-in-law house. He lives fairly close. I assisted him picking up. He had a lot more damage in his place than I did. He lost some windows, he lost part of his roof. I came back here. We got the place back in order. I started to take boards down. After that what I did was ... the following days I had this tree. The street adjacent to my house was blocked because of my tree, so we had to start removing it. Within the first 48 hours of the storm we had a team of people over here and it was all friends, and we just started tearing the tree up. I don't have a chain saw, so I had to borrow some saws. We started mobilizing teams. I didn't have to report to work until Wednesday morning. During the first week we got together a couple of teams, we had a couple of trucks, we had about three saws, and a lot of bodies. We went to different locations. Mostly people that did not sustained a lot of damage to the house, but the did have a lot of damage outside their house. Trees that sometimes were blocking the entrance to their houses. Trees that had fallen in the yards, trees that had fallen on roofs, etc. What we did was going to about 5 different locations. Because we were in large teams, we were able to remove trees in a very short amount of time and just do a lot of work. We worked very hard. We did this for two weekends in a row. I worked in the house whenever I had the time. I really didn't need that much help. The only help that I needed here was removing that big ficus. Once that I had that big ficus under control, which it took me a day and a half between a couple of guys here, what we did was that we went out and started doing other people's places. Oliva:Did you know any of those people? Sardinas: Some of the people we did know. Some of the people ... what we did was that because there were such large teams everyone in the team benefitted from it. They knew someone that knew someone that needed help. All we were interested in was helping out. In the groups not everybody knew everybody. Really word of mouth. It was broken down to 2 teams and on and off to 12 guys. Some people couldn't stay all the time, some could stay a couple of hours, etc. All we needed was a few hours of help. Oliva:What kind of effect did the hurricane have on your daily life? Sardinas: In business I cover all Dade County. The southern portion of Dade County was the one that was harder hit by the hurricane. I also cover the beginning of Monroe County. The first part of Monroe County was hit very badly. My business suffered on a short term. In the long term there might be some growth potential out of it because everybody is starting new, there are a lot of people here as helpers, but there are a lot less residents. Initially what we did at work ... because our primary function is sales, the product that we sell are ice machines. We were flooded with calls. People were asking for ice machines. The only thing that we could actually do, because we were out of power for about a week and a half, we field the calls, get the equipment from point A to point B, if possible. The factory which is headquartered in Illinois, they were generous enough to donate a couple of 1,400 pound machines with the bins and a large generator. We were not able to make ice because the generator was not an industrial generator. All that we were able to do was run a couple of lights and run the phone system because our phones work on power. Unfortunately, the ice machines consume too much amperage for us to be able to do anything as start them up. What we did was donate the machines to areas that were able to do that. After one week, our power did come up, and what we did was we spent the following weekend distributing ice. Well, it was not only in the weekend also during the week. We put a couple of machines to work when we did get power and we made bundles of ice and we took them everywhere. We took them to one general location: South Dade, where they needed it most, at the tent cities. My boss, Dave Mills, also suffered during the hurricane. It didn't really matter how little suffering you had here, you knew that there was much more in other places. Right after the hurricane we came up with a collection. We had a collection at the office. Between a dozen employees we collected enough money that we were able to go out and pick up enough supplies ... we concentrated mostly on baby supplies. We felt that was something that people really were not going to concentrate on. We felt they were going to concentrate mostly on adult food and adult clothes. We picked up formula, pampers, wipes, anything that would help a child. When we were at one location distributing ice, we dropped these off at the Salvation Army which was the location at which we dropped off the large ice machine. Oliva: You knew where to take the ice, right? You had an specific location? Sardinas: We wanted to make sure that it went straight where it had to go. We had a large delivery truck which was enclosed. We were able to go from point A to point B without being disturbed because that area was closed up by the military. There were only certain people in that area allowed to get in and out. Because we were part of the unofficial rescue team we had movement back and forth very easily. Oliva: When you were making your ice distribution, did you have a chance to have contact with the people waiting in lines? Sardinas: Sure, sure. We went straight to the tent cities, which at that time were being constructed. There were what we called "chow" lines everywhere. It was massive destruction every where. To stand in line is very frustrating, but to lose your house is even more frustrating. We observed them as they basically were dirty, scared, hungry, and just panicked. It was what was expected. I did expected to see this. I spent a few years in the Marine Corps. I have a lot of what is called down here "riot control" or "crowd control". I basically knew what was expected. Through my previous training I knew what their reaction was. It was pretty scary to live through that ... you can be inside your home and it is falling apart. We gave the ice straight to the military. The military was in charge of all distributions. Oliva: Has the hurricane changed your plans for the future? Sardinas: I am a person who likes to be prepared for anything that happens, but I was not prepared for the devastation that came about with the hurricane. I definitely will prepare my house more. I'll definitely get the shutters. As far as my business is concerned I am not going to go to the extreme of getting a generator for the house because if it does happen again... When we step back into hurricane season, which will happen again of course; I will already have these preparations finished. Oliva: When did you first come back to work? Sardinas: I had to go to work two days after the hurricane. On Wednesday morning I reported back to work. We didn't have any lights, we didn't have any air conditioning, it was hot! There were a lot of people who were calling up. Some of them very desperate. Some people were begging for ice. They had all kinds of catastrophes. They all had problems. For example, people who had medicine that had to be kept cold, very expensive medicine. People were looking for any type of assistance that they could get. They were looking for dry ice, any place that would make ice, any place that would deliver any ice. They did not care where they would have to go. I heard of people going as far as West Palm to get bags of ice. When your only option is to wait in line for food, I guess you would do anything ... pick it up yourself ... Oliva: How did you feel coming back? Sardinas: Personally, I took it very rough. Miami is a beautiful city and in a matter of hours it was transformed into something else. I know that it will take a few years to rebuild it. I had a real hard time dealing with all the sadness.... There was a lot of pain .... Oliva: Did you feel that your daily work routine was impacted by the hurricane? Sardinas: In the beginning there were just too many things to do. I didn't stop. It was from one things to another to another. I was so busy that for about one month, non stop, I was doing one thing or another. My work has basically gone back to normal. I do the majority of my business down here and Central Miami. It was a very short term, lapse, low in the business. After that everything pretty much picked up. Oliva: What was the role of your company in the rebuilding of the community? Sardinas: The only thing that we were able to do, as a company we donated whatever we could, whatever resources we had. I think that everyone was very generous with their time. Some of the people who were part of the team work for my company. People that felt very fortunate because their houses still intact and they wanted to do what ever they could. People from Broward who suffered minor damages. People from north Dade that just knew about pain .... Oliva: Have you benefitted in any way from the hurricane? Sardinas: I think I have. I think that I have become a different person in many respects. I appreciate a lot of things that I have. Sometimes I stop and think about that night .... Personally, I was not really worried about myself. I was worried about my son. He was so young and still has to go through so much. I was afraid for his safety. Monetarily, I had a couple of projects for the house and one of them was getting rid off that big ficus tree in the backyard. The hurricane did about 70% of the work because it brought it down to eye level. I was able to take care of that more quickly that I had projected. I was always scare of it falling. It would have taken half the house if it would have fallen on it. The insurance assisted me in taking it out. Also, it broke my fence. I have to put up with that now, until I get my money and take care of the situation. Oliva: When you were out there in the neighborhoods helping people, were they happy to see you? Sardinas: They received very well anybody that came out to help them. We all did it and didn't ask for anything in return. We provided our own supplies. I helped out one of my friends who works for FPL and was doing 16 hour shifts. He had a home with a wife and a child, and another one on the way. That was one of the first places that we did because he suffered a lot of tree damages. We did something that he was not going to be able to do for a while. Oliva: When you mentioned that your business was hurt, can you mention figures or make a comparison before and after? Sardinas: As far as the comparisons are concerned, for one week we were without electricity. It was very tough to do business. I know that we lost a lot of business. It is hard to come up with numbers. I will have something at the end of the year, so I will be able to compare it against the figures from last year. If you want a percentage I could say that we were down by 20% from one month comparison to the other, 1991 vs 1992. Subsequently, because of all the people who had come from out of state to assist, there is a lot more movement in restaurants and everyone is getting ready for season "the snow birds coming down". This is what we call "season", all the way to the middle of December. I see everything on track for just a little bit better. There is a lot of money that was injected into our local economy from the insurance companies, and also FEMA. There is a lot of money down here now and people are putting it into good use. They are replacing what was damaged and making plans for the future. Oliva: How was your company able to get organized in such a short time? Sardinas: I would say it was all individual efforts. There was definitely a need and that need had to be met. This is a privately owned company and my boss is young. He sees when there is a problem and he reacts to it. He was brought up down here, so he has a sense of community. Every other month we do a newsletter that goes out to our clients. What we did in that newsletter was to inform people how to protect their businesses in case of a hurricane. Because there was not warning on Friday, that the hurricane was really going to hit, and we had been missed so many years in a row, people had become a bit complacent and it hit basically over the weekend. People didn't have a lot of time to go to their businesses. They concentrated more on their homes. We were very fortunate that the hurricane hit in South Dade, where it is sparsely populated. If it had hit 20 miles further north it would had gone through downtown Miami, and not would I only lost my home, I would have lost my employment. Personally, there would have been a lot more sadness. There would have been a lot more devastation all around. Oliva: Is there anything else that you would like to add? Sardinas: In general everyone in Miami pretty much cooperated. When I say Miami I should say all South Florida because it went all the way to Palm Beach where they had distribution points. In Orlando there was a large movement to assist Miami. Tampa, Jacksonville, they all knew about the pain. The governor declared disaster area before the hurricane ever hit. All they had to do was to get the assistance down here. I am not that negative about what was done as far as government was concerned. I think that Chiles did a very good job. There was some politics involved. That is part of life. Being an ex-military man, I was extremely proud of what the military was able to accomplish. There should be something in the future as far as preparation is concerned to have contingency forces ready for disasters of this type. The time to be cut down before the first support plane arrives, logistics should already by in the works. But none of that should take away what everyone did. I think that next year everyone will be better prepared. I have got a customer that his business is very close to Country Walk and I pass by Country Walk whenever I go to see him. The signs there say it all. The people wrote on the houses "never again"; coursing Hurricane Andrew; asking for help; giving thanks to the Lord; etc. It is very difficult to really say how it was. I feel very lucky for surviving this as well as I did. I did not lose anything in my home. Within 24 hours I was able to continue normally. I had water, power, air conditioning, which is very important down here in the month of August. I was just very fortunate. We took in some supplies of other people who did not have power. My freezer was packed for weeks. There was a lot of food that we didn't want to go to waste. When we had power we were able to cook here and invite families over that didn't have power. I had a barbecue almost every week. We were very fortunate, very fortunate.
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