Belizeans prepare for new hurricane season
It’s that time of year again, so get hold of some fresh batteries for the radio, stock up or your favourite tinned food and make sure there are enough rubber boots to go around. Jose Sanchez reports on the opening of hurricane season.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
Although we may just be recovering from Keith, Chief Meteorologist Carlos Fuller reminds us that today, June first, marks the official beginning of another hurricane season.
Carlos Fuller, Chief Meteorologist
“This year we believe we will have an average hurricane season. That is in the past one hundred and fifty years normally we get ten tropical storms of which six of them reach hurricane strength and two of those are intense hurricanes, greater than category two that is above a hundred and thirty-five miles per hour.”
Jose Sanchez
“What’s the chances of Belize getting hit this year?”
Carlos Fuller
“The region is in a period of heightened hurricane activity. In the past five years we have had more hurricanes, more tropical storms ever in the history of hurricanes. And we go back from 1886 to the present. So we are in a period where we have more hurricanes than usual, so we must be prepared for even one.”
Hurricanes in this region go through cycles of about fifteen years of heightened activity and Fuller believes that it will take another five to eight years before we see a decline in the number of storms per year.
Carlos Fuller
“In the 50’s and 60’s we were going into hurricane shelters and almost every year we were getting these threats. And then in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s we hardly had anything at all. So we are in that period now where we may be rushing into shelters almost on a yearly basis.”
“The way we have set up our warning system is that we have four phases of our hurricane warning plan. When the hurricane or tropical storm moves west of eighty degrees west and south of twenty-one degrees north latitude, we are in the preliminary phase. That gives us about seventy-two hours of warning, that is seventy-two hours to act if necessary.”
Before those warnings are issued to the public, the MET service consults regularly with the Hurricane Centre in Florida and the National Emergency Management Organisation, which is responsible to prepare the country for disasters. Anthony Sylvestre, the National Co-ordinator for NEMO says that there have been some improvements in their plan, particularly to shelters.
Anthony Sylvestre, Sr. National Co-ordinator, NEMO
“We’ve had some retrofitting programmes going on, retro-fitting of the various shelters, bringing them up to certain acceptable standards. And when we say retrofitting we don’t just mean repairing, we mean to put in sanitary facilities and cooking facilities in the buildings which will be used as hurricane shelters. So we have come a long way with that.”
Jose Sanchez
“How many shelters do we have and what kind of security what kind of security will you have for the people who will be staying in them?”
Anthony Sylvestre
“Well in Belize City we have fourteen shelters, government building designated shelters. But we are in the process of identifying privately owned buildings as shelters. Each shelter will have a management team, which will be headed by a warden which will be a BDF personnel and assisted by police, teacher, Red Cross and other and other public officers.”
Each district has it’s own emergency committee but in the case of the old capital, the responsibility has been given to the city council. Mayor David Fonseca is the head of Belize City’s CEMO.
David Fonseca, Mayor, Belize City
“The CEMO out of the City Council, each councillor sits on one of NEMO’s standing committee. And that councillor is also the chairperson of CEMO’s committee of that same standing committee. It’s for us to liase better and have a closer relationship with NEMO and we would have first hand information as to what is happening within the city for us to pass on to NEMO, to make NEMO’s job easier in order to make proper and quick decisions.”
After the hurricane has passed NEMO’s role shifts and its duty is to provide food and also to assist people in finding permanent housing if their homes were destroyed. They don’t have the means to do it alone and depend on the work of organisations such as the Belize Red Cross.
Audrey Courtenay, Belize Red Cross
“Keith did considerable damage to the cayes, and the floods did considerable damage in the Belize, Orange Walk and Corozal Districts. And so a plan of action had to be developed by the Red Cross and we put out an appeal to the International Federation of Red Cross and the response was excellent. We had from the big donor society’s, the Spanish Red Cross, Norwegian, many to name a few. We have just published a report on the Hurricane Keith response and that’s being distributed throughout the country. We feel that was necessary because of the contribution from the general community. We felt obliged to let them know how their money was being spent.”
Though many organisations as well as individuals contribute to keeping the country prepared for disaster, no one can prevent a hurricane from striking Belize. Listening to advice from NEMO and paying keen attention to weather reports may the two things that guide us safely through the next sixth months. Reporting for News 5, Jose Sanchez.
Hurricane names for 2001 are: Allison, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Iris, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Michelle, Noel, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van and Wendy. In related news, Belizean farmers affected by Hurricane Keith will benefit from assistance provided by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. A technical assistance project valued at three hundred and thirty-five thousand U.S. dollars will provide international and local experts in seed technology as well as materials and logistical support for returning flooded farms to productivity.
