Steinway grand piano, which was totally destroyed. The ironical part of the whole thing for me lay in the fact that I had been fixing up a little two-room apartment in this office and adjoining my private office, and had just completed it and had finished moving in that very afternoon, and had taken all my jewelry, wardrobe and other belongings with me.
I was seated in my private office that eventful Friday night after dinner, reading the paper when the phone rang. One of the vice presidents of the Coral Gables Corporation advised me of the predicted storm. This was about 7:30 o'clock and was just barely dark. I went out and bought a paper, and upon reading it called in my nightwatchman and told him to make sure all doors and windows were securely locked and barred, and went with him to supervise same, then went back to my reading, confident that at the most it would only be about as bad as the flurry we had in July, which although it deposited several inches of sand in the office and wetted the rugs badly did no serious or permanent damage. About 10 o'clock the wind was getting pretty high, and I went out and turned a big twin-six Packard coupe around, backing it against the wind, putting it in reverse and setting the emergency brake as tight as possible. The wind at this time was so strong as to cause the sand to cut into one's face like needles. I then went back to retire, but lay down with my clothes on. I noticed that the ocean was rising rapidly and the water already was coming under the doors. It was only a short time before I noticed the rugs were being lifted and putting my hand down I felt the water to be about twelve inches deep, and decided therefore to change into my bathing suit, throwing my clothes containing upwards of twelve hundred and sixty dollars on the back of a chair. My large ring and wrist watch I took off and locked in my desk drawer. This must have been about midnight. I have no record of time for the next two days. About this time the lights went out, and finding matches I lit a candle which was in one of the wrought iron candelabra. The water was still gradually rising, and in the outer office I could hear huge waves swishing in great torrents, when all of a sudden I heard an awful crash. Opening the door to the outer office I saw that the front doors had given away and huge waves were coming in, carrying out furniture on their return. Foolishly, it seems to me now, I rushed over and tried to close them and hold them. The noise of the water was so great that nothing else could be heard, and it was all I could do to retain an upright position even by holding on to the walls. At this time the remaining windows and doors crashed
