San Pedro pulls itself back together
It’s the wealthiest urban area in the country, but Keith inflicted his greatest damage on San Pedro’s poor. Two and a half weeks after the wind and water wreaked havoc; San Pedro and the rest of Ambergris Caye are slowly cleaning up. This morning I returned to the island to see how things are going.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Two weeks ago when we visited the town of San Pedro Ambergris Caye, it was difficult trying to get into some of the hardest hit areas. Today much of the debris has been pushed aside as a major cleanup is underway.
Alberto Nunez, Mayor, San Pedro
“At the moment we are not rebuilding, we are cleaning up the place first. We are about halfway with the cleaning up.”
Hurricane Keith completely destroyed a total of one hundred and fifty one houses and caused extensive damage to five hundred and sixty-seven dwellings. While a number of people who lost their buildings have temporarily moved to the mainland, others who stayed behind are for the moment living in shelters. A programme, utilizing the assistance of the Development Finance Corporation, has been designed to provide affordable housing to hurricane victims.
Patty Arceo, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“The main thing is that these houses, as long as they do not go over forty-three thousand, we through the DFC can afford them at eight and a half percent for the mortgages. Once it goes over forty-three thousand, then the application has to go for twelve percent. But we are also ensuring that these houses that we are giving out, will have concrete pillars, they are at least four feet above the ground and making sure that they have the septic, the plumbing and the wiring, basic things like partitions, the bathroom and also the kitchenette, so that is what we are working on right now.”
Following the hurricane, both Belize Telecommunications Limited and Belize Electricity Limited have been working hard to restore services in the town. Two weeks ago a large contingent of workers from the Telecommunication Services of Trinidad and Tobago arrived in the country to assist BTL in the restoration.
Irwian Jofield, Manager, Installation/Repair, TSTT
“Well we have been doing extensive repairs, splicing, straightening poles, construction basically.
Jacqueline Woods
“Right now you all are on the southern part of the island.”
Irwian Jofield
“Yeah, and on this end we are about ninety-five or eighty-five percent along the main road.”
Because the town’s economy relies heavily on tourism, everyone is working hard to restore all services by the late November start of the tourist season. As the cleanup continues in the areas that sustained damage, those tourism services situated along the beachfront and were not extensively damaged have returned to operation.
Melanie Paz, General Manager, Amigos Del Mar Dive Shop
“Right after the storm my dive guides went and did an assessment of the reef before we started taking people out. When they saw that there was really damage, we started taking tourists out as of this past Sunday.”
Tourists have been diving the reef and other exotic locations, and say the trips below the Caribbean Sea have not been disappointing.
Harley Dufek, Tourist
“It was pretty nice actually. The visibility was really good and also the reef, I thought, it was in really good shape, considering the big storm that came through.”
Sport fishing has also remained active and the guides say their vessels are ready to take out anyone who wants to enjoy the experience.
Javier Francisco Arceo, Fisherman
“Yes, yes, yes. We are already welcoming them, they are coming in, we have the skiff ready to go out. It’s already cleaned and the engines and boats are washed, ready to go out and do fishing.”
Despite loss of their traps and boats, lobster divers report that the tasty creatures are in abundant supply. And hoteliers have been just as busy getting their establishments ready for the surprising number of visitors who have been making new bookings.
Edward Halliday, Jr., General Manager, Caribe Island Resort
“We had basically no structural damage on the hotel. We had minor thatch damages on our bar and the dive shop, but we are still able to operate from them. We are going to do the repairs… the repairs have already began and the back units, we have two front units and two in the back. We had minor water damages, but it’s all a matter of the maids going in already, cleaning it up, taking the mattresses out to dry and that has all been taken care of. So we could be operational as of today if we had water and electricity.”
Ramon’s Village, which did receive considerable damage, has already been cleared of its debris and work on rebuilding the cabanas is well underway. The resort’s management remains optimistic that most of their services will be ready for next month.
Einer Gomez, Assistant Manager, Ramon’s Village
“We started right after the hurricane. We were very lucky that about ninety percent of our staff reported back to work. We haven’t laid off anybody, we are trying to keep everybody working, cleaning our beach and, working inside and we are trying to get the hotel at least fifty percent operational by November fifteenth. We had no damages at the dive shop, inside the kitchen to the appliances, our dining area is intact.”
While San Pedro, like Ramon’s has lost most of its greenery, Arceo says they will be working with the Forestry Department on a reforestation programme. In the meantime a number of hoteliers have hired nursery establishments to replant their landscapes.
The DFC housing programme offers both wooden and concrete houses ranging in price from twelve thousand to forty-three thousand dollars with long-term mortgages.
In related news, although NEMO has lifted the state of emergency, the communities of San Pedro and Caye Caulker have requested that government reinstate the curfew on San Pedro from ten-thirty p.m. to five a.m. and on Caye Caulker from eight p.m. to five a.m. Residents of both islands are concerned about security at night because of wide spread power outages.
