77 School Buildings Affected, $3M in Damages Caused by Hurricane Lisa

As many as seventy-seven schools across Belize City and other parts of central Belize were affected by Hurricane Lisa in early November.  That is according to Minister of Education Francis Fonseca who referred to a final report that has been submitted on the extent of damages caused by the natural disaster on school buildings.  In dollars and cents, Fonseca says that government is looking at approximately three million dollars in damages.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

Francis Fonseca

“The damage, the final report we received suggested that there were seventy-seven schools that had been, that received varying levels of damage.  Obviously some received more significant damage.  I think the most significant damage was to the Belize Rural Primary School.  Their entire roof was destroyed, so that was significant damage and we had a few other schools at that level.  But for the most part, it was medium to low-level damage that occurred, meaning that windows were broken, doors were damaged, flooding and that sort of thing.  The estimate overall is about three million dollars worth of damage.  We’ve put that, that assessment has been given over to the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry oF Foreign Affairs, but we have not waited, obviously, for those monies to come in.  We have been working with various partners so we’ve gotten support from different entities in Belize.  We’ve gotten some donations, plus in our own budget we have a few hundred thousand dollars that we have allocated to addressing some of the more urgent needs.”