The following is taken from the November 1992 issue of Rollins Today:

At 3 a.m. Monday, August 24, Hurricane Andrew landed in South Florida with a vengeance. The record-breaking storm lasted more than four hours and left a trail of disaster.

“The sky became pitch black,” said Ken Quinn, Homestead, Fla. branch manager. “As the storm hit, the walls in our house were shaking, and objects started hitting the house. The sound roared for hours like a train whistle in a tunnel. It was a frightening experience.”

He continued, “When it stopped, we found incredible devastation. It looked like we had been bombed for weeks. Power lines were down, and many people had no phone service or electricity. There wasn’t a house in sight without roof damage, if they had a roof at all.”

Later that day, Ken inspected his Homestead branch. It took over two hours to travel what was normally a 15-minute drive because trees and power lines blocked roads.

“The branch was a total mess,” recalled Ken. “The roof had blown off, and there was lots of water damage. Our air conditioning units blew off the roof and fell on our Orkin vehicles.”

Meanwhile, Rollins and Orkin people were responding to assist their fellow employees in Florida. According to Ken, Ft. Myers delivered vehicles and over 100 gallons of water the day after the hurricane. The next day Key West employees donated more water and food. Soon afterwards, a large shipment of items purchased in the Orlando area brought food, water, clothes and supplies necessary to survive without electricity. The next week a 550-gallon water tank and additional relief supplies, including portable stoves and lanterns, arrived from Atlanta. Employees from all over the nation made donations to the Rollins/Orkin Employee Relief Fund.

Orkin Human Resources VP Rich York explained, “I don’t recall the company ever experiencing a natural disaster of this magnitude. People responded with contributions and offers to help in any way possible. It’s encouraging to know we made an impact in the first few days after the event. There was a huge response from employees across the country.”

All Homestead employees stayed on the payroll at normal pay scales during this crisis.

“The company focused on the human side, not just the business. We made a conscious effort to keep everyone gainfully employed and help them get back to work so they could recover quickly from the effects of this hurricane,” said Rich.

According to region Service Coordinator Tom Cafiero, technicians visited Orkin customers soon after the initial recovery period. This enabled Orkin to determine how many customers’ homes were still standing and needed services now or in the next few months. Homestead had operated 10 routes before Andrew. Initially, Tom anticipated only have three routes left, but as of October 1, Homestead had seven routes in operation. By June 1993, he expects the branch to be back to 10 routes.

Homestead is currently operating out of a trailer located next to the Miami branch.

“I can’t say enough about the support from Miami. They have been a tremendous help to us. It’s important that we don’t lose that branch feeling,” said Ken.

Homestead will likely move back into its original location by the end of 1992, and Orkin will look at building a new branch next year.

“It’s hard to put into words what people felt, but we appreciated everything. It took us out of depression and got us going again. We knew there were people in this company who cared, and that gave us motivation to go forward,” Ken stated. “If the situation ever rises, we will return 10-fold the kindness that has been done for us.”

Ken Quinn is currently the assistant branch manager in the Homestead, Fla. branch. He started with Orkin in 1987 and says that there have been a few hurricanes that have come through since Andrew, but they’ve been free of any “real” hurricane problems.

“It was something that had never happened before,” said Ken, “and to that scale, hasn’t happened since. But the company responded tremendously for employees here. It was very important to the employees that lost their homes and had severe damage. It took a long time to recover, but the company supported us.”

“The company always checked to see how employees were affected after a storm hit,” said Debbie Roberts, director of payroll and employee since 1976. “After everyone was accounted for, we were told what their needs were and asked to donate supplies, toiletries, canned goods, diapers, water. We did the same thing after the earthquake in 1989 in California. It’s just the natural thing to do – to want to help.”

Ken said the company made sure the branch was equipped to do business since all their trucks were destroyed in the hurricane.

“That was the first time I experienced that kind of disaster,” said Tom Cafiero, Boston Commercial operations manager and then region service coordinator out of West Palm Beach, Fla. “The response was overwhelming, both from employees and the company. A lot of nice things were done by the company to support employees and their families, and it was a proud moment to be with the company.”

There were about 20-25 employees who worked in the Homestead branch at the time, but no one was hurt.