A Perfect Storm

Can we give it back?

Early October, just nine weeks after we purchased the hotel, the unimaginable happened.

We found ourselves in a perfect storm.

The beginnings of Hurricane Nate formed on October 3, 2017.

I was in the U.S. packing the few things we had left as we were to close on the sale of our home in a few days. Mark was still at the hotel and had called to say that ‘Wow, rainy season in the rainforest is REALLY rainy!’ but he was to fly to the U.S. the next day to help with the move. The rain and winds increased in intensity while Mark drove 3 hours to the San Jose airport to fly to the U.S.

The storm strengthened into a Tropical Depression on October 4 and then grew into a Tropical Storm on October 5.

We had only 2 guests staying at the hotel. (Geez, we’d have to kick in our marketing effort REALLY soon to make any money!!)  AJ, our manager, called to tell us that the guests were out for the day, but they were now stranded at the bottom of the mountain because the river was flowing over the bridge. There was no way the guests would be able to get back to the hotel that night, so AJ had to find them another hotel in town.

While AJ was in town helping our guests relocate, there were 3 team members on duty at the hotel. Since the bridge was flooded, they had no way to get home, and were forced to sleep at the hotel.

On October 5^th, Tropical Storm Nate bore down hard on Costa Rica. Our area had almost 2 feet of rain in 24 hours.

The wind and rain were torrential that evening as the 3 team members tried to sleep in one of the rooms. They could hear trees falling nearby as the rain pounded and the wind tore at the roofs.  At some point in the night, they decided it would be safer in the kitchen, so they relocated there. They huddled together on the kitchen floor with a carpet wrapped around them to keep warm.

Back in the U.S., Mark and I continued packing for our October 10^th house closing, monitored the storm, and waited for news from AJ about our guests and team.

As the storm began to subside on October 6^th, AJ called Mark. He had been in contact with the 3 team members stranded at the hotel who told him the storm had been very windy, very loud, and very rainy.

Mark asked AJ if he had heard if everything was OK at the hotel. AJ responded that he wanted to go see for himself, but that he had heard it “wasn’t good.” AJ was finally able to return to the hotel later that day.

When AJ finally called us again, on a broken up WhatsApp call from the hotel, with trepidation, AJ said,

“Mark, the suites are gone.”

Mark thinking that AJ couldn’t describe what he meant in English very well said, “What do you mean they’re gone?”

That morning when the team emerged from the kitchen, they found that

The storm had destroyed five suites - half of the units at the hotel. 

As I sat at my (almost former) kitchen island in the U.S., listening to Mark say those words, “What do you mean they’re gone?” and then ask, “Is everyone okay?” a wave of overwhelming panic swallowed me, and I broke into tears.

We were very thankful that no one was hurt, but I still wondered, “Can we give it back?” To say we had buyers’ remorse is a bit of an understatement.

Tropical Storm Nate was the worst natural disaster in Costa Rican history. Fourteen people were killed around the country, and total damage was estimated at $562 million USD. The Pacific side of Costa Rica where we were located is rarely affected by tropical storms and hurricanes, but Nate affected nearly all of Central America.

Tropical Storm Nate over Central America October 2017 Image credit: NASA/MSFC Earth Science Branch

We were anxious to get back to Costa Rica to assess the damage on our own, but first we had to close the sale of our house and move the rest of our things to our Chicago apartment.

Can We Give It Back?

When we finally returned to Costa Rica, about a week after the storm, Mark and I stood by the destroyed units assessing the damage. Seeing it all in person, I again broke into tears as I knew that most of our savings were invested in this hotel which was now half gone. Can we give it back?

I hugged the team members that stayed at the hotel and made it through the storm and asked the rest of the team if their families and homes around Costa Rica were ok. Fortunately, they were.

When we came up for air, we realized we had guests coming in the next weeks and months to the destroyed units. Our reservation manager was fielding lots of calls and emails as some guests had heard about the storm on the news. They were calling to see if we were ‘unaffected and their trips would still be ok’.

Working on damage control to try to keep the reservations that we had on the books, we scrambled to rearrange the upcoming guests as best we could. We had to cancel or postpone others. Can we give it back?

The money-making high season was right around the corner, and we were worried. With half our capacity gone and only a few months into our hotel ownership, our first year was already a complete financial disaster.  Can we give it back?

It’s said that every cloud has a silver lining. Our silver lining was that no one was injured at the hotel, and the lost units were insured.

We called our insurance agent, and he drove from San Jose to assess the damage and verify our claim. Mark met him in the parking lot and could only laugh when the agent stopped to get a measuring tape out of his car. 

“You’re not going to need that.” Mark said.  “There’s nothing left to measure.” 

As the agent viewed the damage, he said without hesitation, “Oh, yes, this qualifies.”

Moving On

With the help of our team and outside contractors, we cleaned up the hotel and continued to welcome hotel guests. After the insurance inspector approved our claim, we fenced off the area around the damaged suites and began the process of demolition and removal.

It turns out that the damage at the hotel could have been avoided.

Our ‘old friend’ Gomer (the previous owner) had cut so many corners on the engineering and construction of the suites, that they never really stood a chance of surviving a storm like Nate. We learned that the hard way. Remember, we had an inspection before we bought the hotel, and nearly everything was ‘approved’ as ok. Yeah right.

We knew we really couldn’t get out of it, so we decided to use the insurance proceeds to rebuild the hotel better than ever. So, rebuild was now what we had to do!

And we would do it the right way – to ensure we wouldn’t be in this situation EVER again--no cutting corners. 

This process would not be easy, but the results would speak for themselves.