In September, HOTELS spoke with Pablo Torres shortly after Hurricane Irma hit the island of Puerto Rico. Torres, general manager of the Caribe Hilton, said at the time that the hotel sustained minor damage but was recovering quickly and attending to guests. It was bracing itself for Hurricane Jose, due to sweep through the area few days later. Hotel staff was pulling together, exhausted but in good spirits, he said.
Then came Maria.
On September 20, Torres and 280 guests and employees hunkered down in the same safe area they’d gathered in during earlier storms and waited out the Category 5 hurricane, which battered the island for nearly 30 hours and left it devastated. “Even for a hotelier, it has been an intense four weeks,” said Torres, a veteran of other hurricanes, including Sandy in 2012.
HOTELS caught up with Torres this week to find out how the Caribe Hilton, his staff and the island are faring.
HOTELS: What’s it been like since Hurricane Maria hit?
Torres: This has been quite interesting and challenging journey considering that we had to go through all the preparations for Irma… and then just after Irma, we jumped right in to helping the refugees, all the displaced people coming from the islands, the (British Virgin Islands) and St. Thomas, and at the same time assisting the local community.
Just when we thought that we had a little bit of time to rest, we noticed that Maria was coming our way and we had to start putting our contingency plan.
I will tell you, I don’t know how to say it, but maybe even for a hotelier, it has been an intense four weeks.
HOTELS: What’s the current state of the hotel?
Torres: As of now, the hotel is closed for arrivals and reservations until October 31, and the reason is we want to make sure our hotel is safe for all our team members and guests… However, our priority right now is that we want to help the community, so as soon as we are able to, we will bring back part of the rooms to first responders and federal agencies, FEMA, etc.
So we are going through a very detailed assessment process, going room by room, and until we complete that full assessment, we don’t know exactly when and how we are going to open the property.
HOTELS: And the extent of the damage?
Torres: It is a little bit similar to what we saw with Irma. From what I can see with my naked eye, a lot of debris everywhere, a lot of trees down, broken glass here and there. We know that the fitness center, which is located outside, had some damage too, and some of the damage is in the foyer of one of the meeting spaces. It’s an area that is small but received some significant damage, and it’s probably the video that was in social media. If you look at the video it looks like a big area but in reality it’s a very small area that we can fix quick.
HOTELS: Talk us through what happened when Maria hit. Was it similar to Irma?
We had about 280 guests and team members together, and we followed exactly the same plan like before. At some point we brought everybody down into the shelter, we were able to provide them with food, meals, entertainment. We have a doctor in house, they had the luxury of having WiFi and internet during the storm so they were able to communicate with their families, and then when we knew that the storm passed, we sent team members to check the rooms and make sure they were safe, and then we sent back all the guests to the rooms.
HOTELS: What about the power and water situation?
Torres: During the storm we had our generator. It can sustain 100% of the building. We have water, no interruption by any means. But the following day, just after the storm passed, obviously we didn’t have electricity from the city, but we were on our generator, and we had a little bit of an issue with the cooling tower that provides the cold water to our generator, so we lost the generator for a while but we worked actively to restore it.
HOTELS: When will the hotel be reconnected to the grid?
Torres: We heard that potentially it could be sometime this week, but as part of the contingency plan we might want to be on the generator for a while, considering that we anticipate that there will be a lot of fluctuation in the voltage coming into our property. We want to protect our equipment and generator. This is something that we will continue to assess until we are sure that everything is balanced and we can connect back to the grid.
HOTELS: How did guests fare in the days after the storm?
Torres: We were in constant contact with the airport and airlines, and we managed to coordinate transportation for them to the airport and back and forth until we had a small group of guests. We managed to find a sister hotel that had some availability, and we transferred the guests to that property.
The last bus that left my property was really heartbreaking for me because we are all human beings and we all have feelings and emotions, but for me it was very emotional seeing my last guest leaving the hotel safe and sound, and with them, safe travels back home. The tears came from my eyes, that’s for sure. It was very heartbreaking.
HOTELS: How are you doing personally?
Torres: Well, I can tell you that after almost four weeks nonstop I managed to have my first Sunday off. So I’m rested now. My team, too. We have been sending managers and supervisors and teams to rest, but the level of commitment and passion to our hotel – it’s really heartwarming. You are talking about people that are between giving priority to their family or to the hotel, and they are coming to work when some of them (pause)… Fuel is still a challenge out there in the city, and they are coming to work and so on for the hotel. I guess it is our nature to help people, something we do every day and every time, and we try to do it for our community and guests. We are truly moved by the selfless effort of our team members to help each other and to assist.
The best of us human beings come out during these challenging times. But I will tell you that Puerto Rico will be back, and we are going to be stronger than ever, and we are committed to rebuild Puerto Rico.
HOTELS: What does the future look like at this point?
Torres: (On October 2) we managed to have a meeting with all the stakeholders in the industry. The meeting took place at the Caribe Hilton. We had the minister of tourism there, hoteliers and managers, hotel owners, and we got together as a team and as one big family to start talking about our plans moving ahead to support all the relief effort and start rebuilding Puerto Rico. (Note: Torres hosted the meeting in his role as chairman-elect of the Puerto Rico Hotel and Tourism Association; about 45 hoteliers and tourism officials attended.)
It was a great meeting, great brainstorming, and it was great to see the industry getting together to rebuild Puerto Rico… We wanted to know the state of the industry and the country, we wanted to know specific information about each hotel’s state at this moment, we wanted to see how we can support first responders and federal agencies coming to Puerto Rico to assist, and what is the next step for us as an industry.
There is a combination of hotels that are already open, hotels that are partially open, but … everybody is going through assessments, everybody is going through cleaning efforts, and the main focus is to bring (hotels) progressively back so we can assist first responders and federal agencies.
HOTELS: How are employees doing?
Torres: That was one of the first actions that we took was to start calling one by one and make sure they are accounted for. We have identified some needs and are working together with the company to support the team members. It’s hard to say right now what the next 30 to 90 days look like, but all I can tell you right now is that we are focusing on the relief effort, to rebuild and to try to restore the destination as soon as possible.
It’s been a challenging time for all of us, but we are committed to rebuild our community and island. And Puerto Rico will be back. We are working very hard to do it as soon as possible. This experience is so rewarding to me because you are seeing the best of the human spirit. For us, being in hospitality, our nature is to help people. It’s wonderful to see.