City needs to be better prepared next time
While all eyes—quite rightly—are looking north, we’ll turn our attention for a minute on a place that was hardly touched by the storm … but may be in big trouble the next time around. News Five’s Kendra Griffith has the story from Belize City.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
Rows of bottled water, boxes of bleach, milk shortening, and soda biscuits are only some of the items that the Belize District Emergency Management Organisation had in place in preparation for Hurricane Dean.
Eleanor O’Brien Alvarez, NEMO District Coordinator
“When looking at the reports coming in about Hurricane Dean, I know seriously that it would have affected areas like Port Loyola, Collet, the Belama phase four, and Lake Independence because we know some areas are very prone to flooding.”
According to the NEMO Coordinator for the Belize District, Eleanor O’Brien-Alvarez, one thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five residents occupied fourteen shelters in the city, while another ten thousand were evacuated to the west.
Kendra Griffith
“Did the process go smoothly getting people into the shelters, getting them on the bus, where there any challenges?”
Eleanor O’Brien Alvarez
“Yeah, it was a great challenged because people wait until the last moment to make up their mind if they want to go beyond Belize City or they want to go into the shelters and not only risking our officers, but also risking their lives, so they need to think seriously about what they would like to do.”
But while the old capital escaped with barely a scratch, some residents in the villages along the old northern road weren’t so lucky.
Eleanor O’Brien-Alvarez
“What we observed is that in Bomba, you had about ninety-five percent of the fruit trees and crops destroyed, you had one house destroyed completely. Also in Maskall, there were some houses without roofs right now and they also had damages to crops.”
And as they assess damages, the emergency organisations are also analysing their own ability to respond to a hurricane threat.
Zenaida Moya, Belize City Mayor
“It was a learning experience for us.”
Topping the improvement list for both the city and district emergency management organisations is hurricane shelters.
Zenaida Moya
“We need to get all the hurricane shelters retrofitted, fixed, repaired, however you want to call it, we need to get that done. … In the event we get hit by such a more higher graded hurricane, we will need to ensure that the hurricane shelters are at a level where it can really withstand the winds and the storm surge or whatever noh.”
Kendra Griffith
“What is the hurricane worthiness of our shelters.”
Eleanor O’Brien Alvarez
“At this point in time it’s like for category three hurricane and I would also say that we would like to see some more hurricane shelters that we had before, the minor repairs that they needed that they would take steps to do so, so that we could accommodate more people in Belize City.”
Other issues include better communication between the National Emergency Management Organisation and the local agencies and a contingency plan for fuel in case of mass evacuation.
Zenaida Moya
“We were supposed to have fifty buses that were to be deployed with evacuees and we could have only gotten twenty buses initially with fuel to go out. We had to wait and last minute we kept calling. We were calling all around to get additional fuel and last minute we were able to get, I believe, eleven more buses. But in a situation where everybody would need to be evacuated there’s no room for not being able to get fuel. Now we don’t have any control over it, the CEMO, we don’t have control. That is where I believe work will need to be done with the fuel stations and those people who are responsible for fuel storage.”
But the agencies can’t do anything to change the fact that Belize City is a low lying area and is therefore more susceptible to the storm surge and flooding caused by hurricane.
Zenaida Moya
“Belize City is low and we can’t stop people from going to build in these swampy areas. We only at this time have to probably try to lessen and alleviate the situation as it pertains to flooding, and try to ensure that the drainage and the culverts and all of that are adequate enough, and the canals and everything are cleared so that it’s adequate enough in the event that there is flooding that the water can flow out quickly to the sea and to the rivers as well.”
Both the city and District Emergency Management Organizations will be submitting their assessment and recommendations in writing to NEMO. Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
Both Moya and Alvarez agreed that the organisations could not have accomplished what they did without the assistance of the police, B.D.F., and other public officers. According to Alvarez, the surplus Belize City supplies will be donated to residents in the north. A release from the United Democratic Party indicates that the U.D.P. has contributed ten thousand dollars to the Corozal Town Council’s relief fund while five thousand was donated to the Orange Walk fund.
