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Strand: When did you first realize the Hurricane might hit Miami? Shultz: I guess a few days before it came, you know when they were talking about it a lot on the radio and tv. But I figured it would hit north of here, like in Broward County somewhere. Strand: What preparations did you make? Shultz: I just moved my stuff in my apartment to kind of safe places. I didn't think I really had to do much though. I guess I got some food and water though, now that I think about it. I stayed on campus with 7 other students, including you, and we did prepare sort of. We got out mattresses to put in the inner hallway in the apartment, the R.A. (resident assistant) had told us that if we were going to stay in the apartments we had to be in the hallway. They really wanted us to go to the towers instead and stay there. You know, those are hurricane shelters. Oh yeah, I moved my car to a relatively safe place, or so I thought. As it turned out, it was safer than where it was before because the old spot had a tree laying in it after the hurricane. But I didn't board any windows or anything like that. Strand: So, what did you think it would be like before the storm? Shultz: Really windy. I had been through hurricanes before, but I don't think ya ever remember exactly what its like until you're there again. I knew it would be windy and I was praying the eye would not hit us! I figured I could even sit outside and watch it. That's what I would do all the time at home. Strand: You said you were in the on-campus apartments during the hurricane, who were you with? Shultz: Well, I was with you for one. And my roommate Pete, and my two sisters that also go to U.M., Maureen and Meghann. Lets see, there was also your two roommates, Sandy and Wynne, and Sandy's boyfriend, Todd. Yeah, that's eight. It was pretty cramped and hot as I remember it. Strand: Me too! What happened to you during the hurricane? Shultz: Besides being scared shitless, oh, sorry can I say that? Strand: (nod head yes) Shultz: Well I was pretty scared. At first it wasn't that big of a deal. I figured there would be lots of wind, some rain and that would be it. But we were listening to the radio the whole time, I wanted to but everyone else didn't. And the weather guy, what's his name, kept saying how it was going to be really bad and to hold on tight. This is what got me a bit scared. He's not supposed to say that to us listeners. It was weird because I was watching this tree outside the window just blow with the wind for the longest time. Then I guess I stopped for a bit and when I looked back out, the tree was gone. I was like, holy shit! The tree is gone. That was freaky. Um, I guess I'm not really answering your question. Nothing really happened to me during the hurricane, except that our curtains got sucked out of the window! Now that was a scary sound as they like flushed out into the air. Man, I can still remember that sound. We all were like what the hell was that? It took us a while to figure it out also. That broke up the time. Strand: What were your concerns during the hurricane? Shultz: I guess my main concern was that the roof was going to blow off. Just a small concern huh? Strand: Why did this concern you? Shultz: Well in the apartments there is a stairwell between sets of apartments that can take work people like up to the roof. The roof door had flown open during the storm and was like banging against its frame. It sounded like a shotgun every time it slammed. But anyway, since the door was open all of this air was being sucked into this stairwell and causing a kind of hurricane or tornado in the well. The air was pushing our back door so much that it was bowing in and out with the wind. Pete was sitting up against it but moved because he thought it would seriously break open. We put a mattress up against it so if it did break we wouldn't like get stuff in our eyes or whatever. So the air pressure really seemed like it would push the roof off. Maybe I was blowing things out of proportion but it seemed like it would do that. Luckily we knew the kids downstairs so we could run down there, but I am glad we didn't have to. Really glad. Could you imagine? Strand: No way! Shultz: Yeah me neither. I guess I was also wondering how my car was doing out there. Strand: What was the first thing you thought about after the hurricane? Shultz: I wanted to call my aunt and make sure she was alright. I had thought about going up there before the hurricane, but I didn't because I thought it would hit up there and I was safer down here. But that was really the first thing I thought about. Then I wondered what everything looked like, you couldn't really tell in the dark when I looked in the early morning, but I wanted to see what had happened. Strand: What was the first thing you did after the hurricane? Shultz: Well the first thing I did was call my aunt. Then I went to sleep for a little. I didn't sleep at all during the brunt of the hurricane and I needed a nap. But after I woke up, me and my roommate went for a bike ride all over the place. We went to the Grove and through the Gables. I was unreal, like nothing I had ever seen in my life. Everything was in a upheaval. Unbelievable. People were all out in the streets with like no clue as to what to do. In the Grove it was unreal. We saw people ransacking stores and taking all sorts of stuff. Oh man the boats were crazy. There were boats in the middle of that road along side the bay in the Grove. Like just sitting there, like they belonged there or something, but they were totally ruined. My roommate is a boat fanatic and he was like so upset at all of the amazing boats just completely trashed and just lying there for anyone to take to fix or whatever. Wow...it was seriously like nothing I had ever seen. Completely demolished. And at that point I hadn't even seen down in Homestead. Strand: What was your first week like after the hurricane? Shultz: Can I say living hell? Oh my was it bad. Well I guess it wasn't that bad because I made money but it really wasn't like heaven or nothing. At least we got to take showers. The water was supposedly contaminated but ok to wash with so we got to take showers. Our electricity came back within a few days, four I think. Luckily the school and our apartment is between two hospitals, so I guess it was on the electrical path or something. Oh yeah, you took off after the hurricane. Well the school provided us stuff to eat, stuff is exactly what it was. Pork and beans and other crap, but at least it was something. It was kind of amusing because it was supposed to be the first week of school so lots of parents and new freshmen were on campus, boy were they surprised. They were all pretty much gone after they said school wouldn't start for a while. It wasn't totally horrible cause I made some money. Strand: Speaking of the money you made, what made you decide to go out and clean up people's yards for money? Shultz: Pete mostly. He was the one who went and searched for the chainsaw and found it. So after you guys took off I took it upon myself to make the money for him. I was just sitting around anyway. Strand: When did you decide to clean up peoples yards for money? Shultz: Well...I kinda just answered that. After a day or two of just sitting around in the heat, I decided to use the chainsaw to good use. So me and Pete and Aldo went out to work. Strand: How did the community react to you? Shultz: Some people were really nice. I guess we looked sincere, since we are college kids and we must have looked like hard workers. Others must of thought that we were gonna rip them off because they weren't to friendly. They just told us to go on our merry way. There were a lot of people doing the same type of thing so it probably was hard for people to decide who to pick. We would put out offers and then the people would either tell us on the spot no or say they would call us back. The ones who said they would call back usually wanted us to work. That was good. But yeah, most people were pretty cool about our offers, some wanted to do it on their own but the older people needed the help. It was nice to help them and they in turn were good to us with the money. Strand: What did you include in your "deal" to clean people's yards? Shultz: Well we pretty much just picked all of the crap out of their yards and made really big piles of trees and roofing and whatever else there would be in the yards. One of the guys we worked with is a nature freak so we ended up trying to save whatever trees or plants we could. Ya know, like replanting them. That was pretty exciting actually. It was nice to try and at least save something from all of the demolished stuff from the hurricane. We had to use my jeep on one of the really big trees to lift it up and replant it. So we hoisted it up and replanted it...I wonder if its still alive. We used the chainsaw to cut whatever we had to. We had to avoid a lot of downed wires when we cut. Those were all over the place. The chainsaw was fun to use. It jumped back on Aldo once, luckily he moved cause if he didn't he would have a skull in two pieces now. So anyway we just cleaned as much as we could up and tried to save what we could. The older people were good to us, offering us water and food. I guess they were pretty thankful for what we were doing for them. That would be tough for them to handle on their own. Strand: How did a typical conversation with a potential employer go? Shultz: Well we would pretty much just go to their house and just ask if they wanted their yard cleaned up. We told them what we would do, like picking up everything and chainsawing whatever needed to be done. And we would always add that we would try to save what trees we could. Like I said before, most people were pretty nice to our offers, like thanking us but saying no anyways. We would tell them that we each were to be paid one hundred and seventy-five dollars per day per person. It may sound like a lot but I guess others who were doing the same as us were charging a lot more. The people who took us up on the offer told us that it was pretty cheap compared to what other people were charging. So they would tell us what they would like done. Like picking up all of the stuff and making piles near the road. They just really wanted it done. You know at this point it was about three days or so after the hurricane so they really just wanted the stuff out of their yard and gone forever. While it was laying there the junk must trigger some bad memories in people. I would have wanted my yard clean as soon as possible also. It was weird...they just wanted the stuff gone..out of their life. So we did that for them. It was hard, hot work though. Boy was it. I guess it was a equal trade off. Strand: You mentioned that you stated the price you wanted. How did the potential employers react to that? Shultz: Well, they really didn't think about the cost too much. Like if they wanted our services they just wanted the job done. No questions really were asked. The people who thought about it for too long were probably concerned about the price. These were the people we tended not to hear from again. One woman jumped on to the question of pay before we did. She offered us an amount and we took it. We didn't really see the need to go down in our price since she was offering more than what we would have. See all these people were in the Gables. The have the money to spend I suppose. We really didn't feel that bad about getting paid a bit more than what we would have originally. The Gables people just wanted the work to get done. They were really nice to us though. But like I said before, there were those that either wanted to do the work themselves or didn't want to be bothered by us and they just shunned us off. Some people actually got like offended by our price offer. Like we should be doing this out of the goodness of our hearts and helping others in their time of need. I guess this is a good idea, but its human nature to like get something out of something. We weren't rude or mean to these people, we just said thank you and left. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and maybe they were right. Strand: Yeah, I guess you never know. Was a "grapevine" formed between employers? Shultz: Yeah. Some of the people would talk to each other about us. Strand: Would you tell me about that. Shultz: Well there was this one woman, an older lady who told people about us and how we did a good job. She was really nice, she gave us water and food to eat when she knew she didn't have to. So she told two of her friends and we did their yards also. All three of those ladies were older but really good women. It seemed like everyone was talking to everyone. Like giving each other advice or opinions on what to do. That was definitely good to see after all of the bad situations people were in. The athletic department was also helping each other. I'm sure other departments at U.M. and other places were doing the same but our coach called us cause he new we were down here and looking for work. So he told other people in the athletic department that we would clean their yards. A lot of the football coaches wives' were stuck down here alone because the coaches went to practice up north, I think in Vero or something. So they were looking for people to help them clean up their mess also. They were real friendly to athletes cleaning their yards. It was a real friendly situation all around. Like we were getting paid, but at the same time we were all doing each other a favor in a really bad time. It was good because once you get into one person you are kind of connected to others. So...yeah a grapevine was formed, and it was good for us. And them also, we were helping them too. Strand: When did the influx of "money-makers" arrive in South Florida? Shultz: Well they were definitely out there from the start. But like I'm sure you heard on the radio there were tons of people down here by a week after the hurricane. Well there were those people like Southern Bell and different states power companies down from the start but the people like me who just went out to make a quick buck and help some people out came around about a week or a week and a half after the hurricane. Everyone was knocking on peoples doors to get work. Didn't people go to your house? Strand: Yeah, tons of them. In fact a guy just knock the other day asking if we wanted the stump we have cut up for us. Shultz: Yeah...I'm not surprised it's still going on. It seems like the hurricane is out of our lives and we have gone with it but it is still real and alive, at least the clean up part. Strand: Your right. So tell me some interesting stories from your work cleaning up yards after the hurricane. Shultz: Well, we got shafted out of a job at one house. See we were working on this one ladies house and her next door neighbor came back from wherever he went to during the hurricane. He was super rich and said that we could work for him after we were done with the ladies yard. So we finished the ladies yard and set up a deal with the man. We were working on his yard for about an hour when his lawn service showed up and started working there also. They were working on one half and we were on the other half of the yard. Since we made the deal with him we weren't gonna leave. So we worked for about three hours until he finally came out. He ended up telling us to leave and his lawn service did the work. He did pay us for the time we did which was nice of him but it sucked that we couldn't finish the job for him. We figured it out that he was paying them a hell of a lot cheaper than he would have ended up paying us so I guess he got the good end of the deal. The lawn services were really the big influx of people into the market. Some Joe Schmoe gets hired by the community and puts a bunch of cheap labor out to do the real work. See they had the machinery and the big tools you would need to fix these peoples yards up good. It was tough for us, and it took a longer time for us because we didn't have the machinery and tools that those lawn services had. Those people could also haul all of the junk away. We could only do so much compared to that. We made big piles on the side of the road, which really was not a better option than getting the junk taken away. Another thing that stuck me pretty hard was how nice the people were that we worked for. The older ladies were so nice and cute. They would keep on coming out to see if we were ok and to ask if we needed anything. One lady even told us like every hour or so that we should take a break because it was too hot to be working. It was really sweet. Strand: Do you ever see them? Shultz: I saw them towards the end of last semester but I haven't heard from them since. They said they would call me if they wanted any other work done, regardless of the hurricane damage. I guess they are doing alright. Strand: Is there anything else that you would like to tell me that I haven't already asked you? Shultz: The one thing that I was totally amazed about was how fast people came down to help out. It was like there were so many people in a matter of a week. All helping in some way. It stopped my work instantly, lots more people that were willing to do the same job for a lot less. After I worked for about a week I left South Miami for a while. I was driving on I95 and the amount of trucks and service vehicles that were heading south was amazing. There was just truck after truck after truck. I'm from Tennessee and when I got home there were people in my town that were heading on their way down to South Florida to work, or help out. It was just so unreal. It kinda shows that people do have hearts under there somewhere. Its good to know, huh? Strand: Definitely. Shultz: Yeah...so I guess that is really it. I can't really think of `anything else. Just that all of the people who came down to make some money probably did so and they may even still be down here. All of the money I made is gone now. I'll always remember the hurricane and what I did. It was fun. Strand: Thank you very much for all of your help and insight for this hurricane project. I'll keep you up to date on when the book will be out for sale.
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