Journals of a Hotel Manager

A major metropolitan city, Asia.

My phone rang in the middle of the night on February 2, 2002. I picked it up and the digital clock read 02:02am. One of the main disadvantages of living in house is that the staff know you can be reached at any time. And they are not afraid to wake you up in the middle of the night to ask for a decision they don’t want to make.

“Mr. John, you’d better come down and take a look. The rain water is coming very fast. Do you think we should close the front gate?” asked the Duty Manager with a hint of panic in his voice.

I reluctantly put on yesterday’s suit but was too lazy to put the tie on. The lobby was quiet with only the skeleton night crew on duty. The relentless rain for the past week impregnated all the flood canals in the city to their full capacity. Our hotel was situated near a large sewage treatment plant with a large cesspit which we dubbed Lake Michigan. The sewage water lapped at the banks on the street level and if the rain didn’t stop it could overflow.

As I inspected the small river rushing down the front drive, word came in from Security that our basement garage had some water seepage. The night crew was dispatched to drive the cars up to street level. But there were some cars that were self-parked so we had no record of the owners or the keys.

I prepared a letter of the situation to be sent to the guest rooms. For once we were running a full house. The rain splattered on our glass roof in the lobby loudly and I sat down to have a double espresso to wake up. I was the Resident Manager then and I contemplated about whether to call my GM who had started work only a week ago. A couple of high class hookers emerged from the elevator in order to slip away before day break but they were shocked to find the streets in ankle deep water. They returned and huddled in a corner. There was no way they could go back to the customer’s rooms to spend the night. I pitied them and sent for a bellboy to drive them across the street.

By 4am the city became an island. We counted on the fact that we were protected by three main flood gates. Little did we know that as the gates held fast to massive inundation, the city government opened one of the flood gates to divert the overflow in order to protect the presidential palace and the historical area. They also neglected to inform anyone. As a result, the financial district and thousands of private residences were swamped. We happened to be located in the financial district.

And the flood rushed in with a fury.

5am. Two levels of the basement garage were completely flooded. That also included our back up generator unit and hundreds of gallons of spare fuel. I notified the GM. The GM, myself, a few expat Chefs and the newly appointed Japanese sales manager were living in house. They were all woken up to deal with the emergency. The young Japanese came down in his brand new suit. I asked him to change to shirt and jeans. There would be some dirty work ahead.

6am. Lake Michigan finally burst its banks. The street in front of the hotel had over 5ft of thick brown sewage water, mixed together with our spare fuel. The smell was horrible.

6:15am. I went to the Ballroom level which was just one level below the lobby. Water bubbled through the cracks of marble slabs. It was slippery as hell and I ordered Ballroom level to be cordoned off in case of guest injuries.

6:30am. Morning shift did not come on duty. The roads were flooded so no public transportation was available. Only later we knew 75% of my staff’s homes were destroyed.

7:00am. Ballroom level had 2 feet of water. I took off my shoes to reach my office and the carpet undulated wildly underfoot as if I was walking in a bouncing castle. I had just enough time to unplug my computer, find my 3 Rolodex with all my contacts, and take an expensive Chinese hanging scroll off the wall when the power went off.

“Mr. John! Mr. John!” frantically shouted some staff who had seen me vanish into the dark.

I emerged without harm and on hindsight I was in grave danger of being electrocuted standing in knee-deep water when the main electricity switch was still on.

7:10am. The water kept rising from the Ballroom level. I put one staff in charge of watching the water level. To be honest, if the water came into the lobby, I had no plan.

7:50am. Thankfully the water stopped rising, just 2 feet below the lobby level as it obtained equilibrium with the flood level on the street outside. As a result, we lost our beautiful Ballroom of 2000 square feet with its expensive carpet, marble foyer, handmade artwork, all its equipment and newly renovated banquet kitchen. My office, F&B office, HR office, Laundry, Housekeeping, staff locker rooms, Engineering office, and three levels of basement garage were also completely submerged in sewage and gasoline mixture with the equivalent volume of 35 Olympic swimming pools.

The nightmare was only beginning as the guests started to wake up. I would never forget this string of number: at 02:02 on 2.2.2002.