Tropical Wave Floods Toledo Villages Catching Residents by Surprise
Tuesday night’s heavy rains and cooler weather might have been good sleeping weather for some, but the deluge caught many in the Toledo District off guard. Today, they were scrambling to secure livestock, figuring out how to get across flooded roads and bridges, or finding themselves cut off from the main road or their neighbors. Many villagers have been posting images to social media, calling out for assistance, or just sharing their situation. News Five’s Paul Lopez has the story of the tropical wave and how it brought torrential rain to the south.
On the Phone: San Vicente Resident
“This is how San Vicente looks this afternoon. One of the houses has been flooded and is half way up the building. Most of his stuff has been carried out by water. Since he is all the way at the entrance of the community, we were not aware. The owner of the house is out in town, except the children were home. We were notified later, and that is how he lost most of this stuff in the flood. This is the first ever flood we have seen in this community. The bridge is under water right now.”
Incessant rain over night led to flooding in communities across the Toledo District.
On the Phone: Leslie Parham, Triple Ls Farms, Mafredi Village
“From last night we had steady rain coming into this morning. And now, about seven, eight I start to see the water coming up very fast. It took about half hour to an hour where it really top gallon the banks and flow right over on the farms, where I have to move over all the life stock, the sheep, the horse, cows chicken. We haven’t expected this rain to come sudden. At this time, I move my family to higher grounds which are about a mile from us. We still haven’t gotten across the stream as yet, because we cannot pass. In a specific area.”
“You are trapped?”
On the Phone: Leslie Parham
“Yeah, we are trapped; we cannot cross the river until the water goes down. Never yet, never yet sir, water comes high but never over the farm area that I have, never yet.”
News Five also received images of flooding in San Pedro Colombia.
Chief Meteorologist at the Belize Met Service, Ronald Gordon, explained that the heavy rainfall was caused by a tropical wave passing over the country and intensifying into last night, affecting mainly the south.
Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist
“We had a tropical wave that crossed us. This morning its axis was directly over Belize. It was an active wave. It started affecting the country I would say as early as yesterday morning, and we start having rain falls. Those continued throughout the day and increased last night. The other thing with the particular wave is that it had an area which can vent deep convection, and it allowed the convection to develop and give it a pump to take that air out and allow that thunderstorm to increase and intensify. That is what happens over the past twenty four to thirty-four hour, resulting in heavy rain falls, particularly over the south. One of our stations in Corazon Toledo recorded just over five inches of rain over the past thirty six hours.”
The National Met Service has been tracking and monitoring this tropical wave. Rain was forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday; additionally, a flood alert and small craft warning was issued.
“The first thing is that there is going to be an improvement. As I mentioned the axis of the wave is now to the west of us, so it is moving away. And as a result, conditions are going to improve. However, the south in particular will have lingering moisture behind. We can expect at least another one to two inches of rain fall between this afternoon and tonight, decreasing further tomorrow Thursday. However, we do see another tropical wave coming towards us for Saturday or so, and so that will eventually lead to another surge in moisture late Friday going into Saturday.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.
Three other southern villages got some bad news of their own today as the Government of Belize announced that the COVID-19 lockdown will continue for Barranco, Midway and Conejo villages until the end of the month, July thirty-first.