NEMO says 200 homes damaged and $33.8 Million in damages so far

According to NEMO Coordinator, Noreen Fairweather, the preliminary assessment got underway with aerial reconnaissance and terrestrial teams in affected areas.   The preliminary figures are at thirty-three point eight million dollars. That figure is on the low side but Fairweather says it does not take into account the tourism industry or the impact due to the loss of electricity.  We note that more than two thirds of the damage comes from losses to the citrus industry in the south. Fairweather also presented a breakdown of the two hundred plus homes which were damaged by Richard.

Noreen Fairweather, NEMO Coordinator

Noreen FAirweather

“We have in terms of damages to homes, over almost two hundred homes—one hundred and fifty to two hundred homes. We are looking at some preliminary figures around three point six million dollars. Recovery works—speaking specifically the basic clearing of roads and highways, removal of trees and debris and putting things back in order countrywide—not recovery in terms of replacing any structural work that may have been done on road network: bridges, culvert etc. this is just recovery for the removal of the debris and things blocking roads, and our estimate for that is about one million. Throughout the passage of Hurricane Richard, we had about four thousand six hundred plus people in shelter. Unfortunately with some of those houses going down and people losing roof, sidings, there are persons to accommodate and support in shelter with relief supplies—feeding and bedding. And we have an estimate of a hundred thousand dollars that will meet those expenses given a certain time frame; we feel that we can get them back to some resemblance of normalcy.

As the minister mentioned, the citrus industry took a great hit. When we flew over this morning, the DANA team went over and you fly over the orchards, it looks great, as the chopper went down; all the grapefruits and oranges were on the ground. A couple trees went down but all fruits were on the ground. After speaking to the people in the industry their figure they narrowed it down, and at the end of the day their ballpark estimate based on their experience, we came up with twenty-nine point one million dollars lost in citrus industry. I know they have looked at some way to see if they can recover, but at the end of the day, this is what a damage has been done. If they recover great, but the fruits are down every single one. It was mind boggling. Citrus, the breakdown: Orange is about nineteen point five million dollars and grapefruit, nine point six million dollars. Our understand is that the grapefruit crop would have been reaping in November. So it was just a bad time for them. When we looked at the oranges, they’re fairly young fruits. I believe oranges come in earlier in the year, but at first pass, it did look like they were affected, but as the chopper went lower down then we realized that there were other stuff that were green on the ground beside grass; it was all the oranges sitting there. We’re looking at just about thirty-three point eight million dollars in preliminary estimate of the damage of hurricane Richard’s impacts on Belize. I do emphasize its preliminary. A detail assessment will continue and we will have a better hold of the figures as we tighten up our assessment. The teams are out there doing on the ground checks.”