Two Storms
By early October of 2017 there had been eight hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, double the usual average. Of those, three Category 4 hurricanes (Harvey, Irma and Maria) hit the U.S. and its territories, marking the first time this had happened in all of recorded hurricane history, which dates to 1851. The month of September alone saw six storms, beginning with Hurricane Harvey and then producing Hurricanes Irma, Jose, Katia, Lee and, one of the worst storms ever, Maria.
The real toll of these storms was the lives lost and those uprooted, the impacts to individuals and to families, and even today in 2019 the numbers continue to come in. People in Texas and Florida were hit along with those on islands in the Caribbean, and in addition to estimated material damages in excess of $200 billion the personal toll is likely incalculable. Among all those affected, Puerto Rico was one of the hardest hit, losing nearly all of its electricity, communications and other services and seeing major destruction to its roads, housing and infrastructure when Maria tore across it. “It was as if a 50- to 60-mile wide tornado raged across Puerto Rico, like a buzz saw,” Jeff Weber, a meteorologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Vox after the storm.
There’s ‘life before Maria,’ and ‘life after Maria’—it hit everything
— Hurricane Maria —
“There’s ‘life before Maria’ and ‘life after Maria,’” said Michael Rios, General Manager of TPC Dorado Beach, in 2017. His club, like the rest of Puerto Rico, was severely impacted by the year’s storms and specifically by Hurricane Maria. Maria was a catastrophic event for the island, and Puerto Rico is still in recovery mode in 2019. Three weeks after the storm, only 392 of the island’s 5,073 miles of roads were open, half of Puerto Rico’s 67 operating hospitals were running on generators, few people had working electricity or telecommunications, and roughly a third of the island had no clean drinking water.
“In the tropics we don’t have fall,” said Jeff Willenberg, TPC Dorado Beach Director of Golf. “Afterwards, the leaves were stripped. It’s like everything had turned brown. A tropical island looked like November in the Northeast. It was very shocking to see.”
“Some people just started crying,” added Rios, describing what is was like to come back to the TPC Dorado Beach property after the storm. “At some point it touches your emotions. [The club] is known by its lush landscaping, and there’s green all over the place, so seeing everything you worked with when you drove in the gate, all the prettiness; it’s like an atomic bomb exploded. It’s really hard.”
Maria was the third storm in a row to affect Puerto Rico, following Hurricanes Jose and Irma. Maria was the final blow, but it didn’t knock them out. The first order of business after the storm was to ensure staff were ok, Rios explained, and then to form a plan.
“Our teams, many of whom had lost everything, their homes... showed up together and got everything going. Just two days after the hurricane, the team was back working. It was an amazing, amazing experience, seeing how they dedicated themselves, how committed they were.”
Rios said gas stations had no gas because trucks couldn’t get through to make deliveries, and that electricity remained a problem into the following year. TPC Dorado Beach distributed some of its equipment fuel to staff and to some members’ generators, which often remained the only source of electricity, including for the club. Otherwise, Rios said, staff began carpooling from San Juan and everyone pitched in to help each other rally around the club, which became much more than just a place to work.
“Before the hurricane we’d stocked up pretty well,” said Willenberg. “In our minds we had to feed 500 people a day, three times a day for two weeks, just a simple buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner... And not only our members, but we were feeding employees: 400 lunches and dinners a day in our clubhouse.”
The resort’s Sugarcane Course was open within three weeks, Rios said, though it took longer to open the property’s famed East Course. The property’s third course remained
shut for months, but crews worked nearly nonstop to get everything cleaned up. Trucks transported debris out before the morning tee times and on off days, which on the East Course meant trucks worked Monday through Thursday just hauling debris.
“A little over a third of our members and guests are golfers,” said Rios, “so there is so much more to Dorado Beach than great golf. Our members, by coming in the next day and having staff welcoming them into the clubhouse… That feeling is so important.
“And also with the tourism industry of Puerto Rico, I think we have a responsibility: we are the high-end tourism destination on the island. For us, bringing back TPC Dorado Beach as quickly as possible is bringing back the clientele as quickly as possible. We see ourselves with the responsibility of leading that effort.”
Willenberg agreed: “Getting the facility open showed a return to normalcy. It’s a place our members and guests feel comfortable being in, get away from the day-to-day challenges, where they can enjoy time with their families, the golf or the other outlets, and there really is not a lot of enjoyment on the island at this moment.”
— Hurricane Irma —
“Living in Florida during hurricane season, you kind of feel like you’re sitting on a live rocket... and hoping that it doesn’t blow,” said TPC Tampa Bay General Manager Craig Cliver in 2018. “This hurricane season… it was a little interesting.”
According to recorded history, Florida has been hit by hurricanes more often than any other state. In fact, there are only 18 seasons on record in which Florida was not affected by a known storm. The 2017 season began in earnest in late July with Tropical Storm Emily, which spawned a tornado and created flash flooding in Miami.
Other storms brought rain and winds and damage, but it was Hurricane Irma in mid-September that really made an impact. After tearing through the Caribbean, Irma hit Florida’s Cudjoe Key on September 10 and proceeded to rip across the state, bringing severe damage and flooding from the Keys through Gulf Coast cities, inland through Orlando, and all the way to the state’s most northern regions. For TPC Prestancia in Sarasota, TPC Tampa Bay, and eventually TPC Sawgrass, near Jacksonville, the hurricane was an unwelcome event that brought out the best in their clubs and communities even as it wreaked havoc with their courses.
Cliver said the summer went well enough in Tampa, with Florida’s typical afternoon storms coming right on cue. But on September 4, Labor Day, Hurricane Irma reared its head, the state’s governor declared a state of emergency, and “everybody started battening down hatches,” he said.
“It’s the simple things,” said TPC Sawgrass Assistant General Manager Matt Borocz. “Number one is to get everything off the course: flags, tee markers, garbage containers, anything that could potentially take flight or be damaged… Golf course rakes, hazard stakes, anything we could lose as part of the storm or that could float away or get caught in a drain is picked up. They’ll also bring down the lake levels. Beyond that, it’s really about getting together with contractors in advance, preparing for tree service, getting large equipment ready or other needs. Really, assessing the property as much as we can and thinking of anything we could be doing differently.”
Back in Tampa, Cliver said they kept the course open half the day on the Saturday before the storm.
“Those that played gave the employees a standing ovation just for being open to play golf,” he said. “Then we had windows to board up, sandbags to fill…” Cliver said they also unplugged all electric items except for refrigerators, they put plastic bags over all computers and electronics, took all liquors off the shelves in the bars and so on.
Like TPC Sawgrass, all coolers, flags, tees, “anything that could go airborne” was removed. At the time the state’s clubs were preparing for Irma, it was still a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, and everyone was expecting the worst.
Once it was over, returning to work was tough for everyone, but all the clubs got right back to it with a focus on staff safety first, then on returning the properties to working order.
“Me personally, when I arrived back on Tuesday, the first thing is ‘Wow,’ just to see it,” said Borocz. TPC Sawgrass had the added issue of heavy rainfall in the days prior to Irma, thanks to a nor’easter that hit. This meant the ground was soaked, so when Irma’s high winds blew into town, many of the larger trees were in jeopardy of becoming uprooted, and some did.
“We had 18 inches of rain during that Irma period, in a 72-hour period. There were consistent winds of over 60mph, gusts up to 100mph, in that range… We had bunkers that were full of water, but really, it was the debris…
“One of the only holes that was affected from a strategy standpoint was Hole 15 on the Stadium Course. There were oak trees on the right-hand side that guarded the green that were uprooted from the storm and removed… Longstanding oak trees that had been there probably 100 years or longer. They were significant.”
At TPC Sawgrass, Borocz said staff were out working on the course just days after the storm hit, with the pros, the agronomy staff, food & beverage workers, caddies, everyone, all walking the course to help with the cleanup.
“We went hole by hole, every branch, every pine cone, getting all the debris up and moving it to a debris site,” he explained. Likewise, Cliver said it was all hands on deck. As to why everyone made the effort, the club managers echoed the same sentiments, and it comes down to community, the members, the staff and the community at large.
“When we’re looking from a total club standpoint,” said Borocz, “we want to get open as safely as possible. A lot of our staff are frontline staff, gratuity-based, servers or outside staff impacted by business levels. No. 1 is the safety of the team, safety of the staff, and then also you look towards the fact that you want to open for business in a feasible way to get our staff up and working. It means a lot.”
“Lots of staff and guests didn’t have power for an extended period of time, and we had that,” explained Cliver. “We offered our showers to anyone that came in, and a lot of my staff used our facilities to shower. And the guests that were still in town really appreciated that we got up and running so quickly, the fact that there was some semblance of life as it ever was for them. And I feel like that was my experience, too. I woke up Monday and saw the world was still going. Hoping that the coffee shop we frequent was still open, that you’d be able to go out and grab lunch somewhere… All of the players that came back the following week, they were so grateful that they got to go chase a little white ball around and have fellowship with their friends, so it was kind of cool to be able to do that.”