Flooding Update from Rural Belize District

Today, we travelled to Crooked Tree Village, where Lionel Smith, NEMO’s District Coordinator for Belize Rural, gave us an update on the flood situation on the ground. As was expected, two areas along the causeway are under approximately one foot of water. In other areas in the Belize River Valley, access roads were inundated and the Belize Coast Guard was called in to assist.  Fortunately, this is believed to be the extent of the flooding. Here’s DC Smith with that update. 

Lionel Smith

Lionel Smith, Belize Rural District Coordinator, NEMO

“The water is kinda like coming up. Right now we are a little over ten inches. If it continues to come up like this then maybe we will require the services of the coast guard, but at this moment in time, we are not anticipating a great rise in the water level. This spot that you see behind me here, this is the first phase of it. There is another spot before you reach the causeway bridge; that part is a little deeper. That part is like up to a feet and this part is like six to nine inches. We did get some calls yesterday and we were monitoring the situation closely because residents were that maybe people are visiting and they might go over and get trapped over the other side, but it has not reached to that level as yet. So we are monitoring it closely and then if we need to issue an advisory to say that it is rising at a rapid pace and then it is going to present a deterrence for the vehicles going in. But it is not bad at this moment in time and we also have the coast guard on standby at this time. If push comes to shove, as they say, then we will get the coast guard out here to ferry people back and forth. We had a coast guard deployment out in Rancho Dolores to assist the residents out in that side because what happened, the water came up on the road quite high – it was almost three feet. The coast guard did not have to deploy their vessel; they had a heavy duty vehicle that has a little height and they utilised the vehicle to ferry people back and forth.  They closed down operations out there around midday and they returned to base. So the water out there in Rancho, before the approach of the bridge, has receded completely.”