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Hurricane Georges
September 1998 and it was the peak of the Hurricane season. Gold Club Casino was going well but there was trouble on the horizon – literally. The biggest hurricane of the season, Hurricane Georges, was on its way and expected to hit Antigua directly.
Henrik was at his office preparing for the oncoming storm. Water, food, power, toilet paper…
I (Ian) too was in Antigua working for Intertops at that time and I remember it well. We were all well informed by the authorities about the approaching storm and were well provisioned. In the early evening it all started and Hurricane Georges hit Antigua directly.
Page List
- Interview – Hendrik Sandin – Boss Media
- Interview – Henrik Sandin – Operations
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Norway
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Norsk Tipping
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Antigua Again
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Boss Media’s Home Markets
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Boss Media Devoured
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – After Boss Media
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – End
The electricity service collapsed when the electricity cables started arcing due to the strong winds and unbelievably dense rain. Roads turned into rivers. Cars washed away. And that was just the beginning.
Once the relatively peaceful, but eerie, period of the hurricane eye passing over us, we experienced its full force. The Intertops offices on the 3rd floor of a building on Nevis Street seemed to be made out of Kleenex and spit. It didn’t fare too well. The wind literally blew rain through the walls and the doors and windows were bending alarmingly, threatening to break in (or out) at any moment.
A lot of mopping, but at least our roof didn’t blow off. Unlike poor in Henrik’s office. He told me about their experiences: “The roof literally peeled off like a sardine can in front of my eyes and the change of pressure sucked out all loose papers in the office through the opening and it was suddenly raining on the servers!”
A disaster to say the least. After the hurricane passed, Boss Media had 8 racks of servers that needed to be replaced or relocated. Luckily, Henrik Widow’s connections with Cable & Wireless proved useful, and he managed to organize a new office plus all the service connections, power, internet, water etc. And drying out most of the servers.
Henrik Widow’s connections with Cable & Wireless proved useful, and power, internet, telephones and water were all sorted out in short order. And they dried out most of the servers.
The casino was up and running again in 5 days – which is pretty impressive for Antigua or anywhere after such a calamity.
After Antigua
It was 2000 and business was getting difficult to carry out in Antigua. License fees were increasing as was government scrutiny.
By this time Boss Media had become a public company and was traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Being answerable to shareholders, Boss Media needed to reduce the risk and spread its wings.
Boss Media made some strategic decisions and obtained a Curacao Master License and a Kahnawake license and began to relocate some services. For resilience, they hosted new servers at E-Commerce Park, Curacao and also at Mohawk Internet Technologies, Kahnawake.
Henrik moved to Curacao to setup operations but didn’t stay too long. Later in 2000, Henrick moved back to Sweden and had a new plan.
