CITCO works to clear blocked drains
The rains were back in Belize City today and while the flooding was not as bad as on Tuesday, News Five’s Jose Sanchez discovered that it’s not just the precipitation that makes the streets hold water.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
Its, not black gold. And the petroleum magnates have not come to Belize City to drill for oil. It just happens to be the Belize City Council crew hard at work trying to alleviate a blockage that has been hampering the drainage of rainwater from the streets.
Ean Whyte, City Council Employee
“Well, we have to get through enough things. We have to get our truck filled with water, then we have to take up all the holes to see where the problem is situated. Once we find the problem, then we deal with it, as you see we were doing just now.”
Jose Sanchez
“So you all blow water into the hole?”
Ean Whyte
“We blow the culverts that are stopped up and we suck out the garbage. If it’s too stopped up, the boss will let us use the back of the truck to set up everything. Right now we are doing some blowing due to the weather.”
Chief Sanitation and Environment Officer Lawrence Ellis, says that the trucks they have gotten since the infrastructure project have been really helpful in getting the drains flowing smoothly.
Lawrence Ellis, Chief Sanitation Officer
“The slush truck’s main purpose is to clean the cover drains. It has a four-inch suction hose that sucks up anything under four inches. It also has a drip system with a hose that pumps 3,000 psi and any debris that is in the drain that will blow it out. During the year we try to maintain all the cover drains and have all the culverts clean. That is why when this last rain came down, even though the streets were flooded, it wasn’t because of the drains, it was because of the high tide and the amount of rains that fell. But if you notice, before half an hour afterwards, everything drained off.”
Although the trucks and their personnel have been out constantly, the main problem they seem to have is not the rainy weather, but the litterbugs that cause the culverts to clog in the first place. Every time a child drops an ideal bag or an adult throws away a plastic bottle in the street, it eventually blocks the drainage system.
Ean Whyte
“If you notice all the paper that the people use, I really don’t know what causes it, but every time we work this is what we find. This is what really stops up the culvert. It is very hard for the truck to work under these kinds of possibilities.”
“Right now we just want to tell the Belizean people to hold it down on the garbage that they are throwing out here in the drains. It’s really ill my boy, for real.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Jose Sanchez.
