Over 50 Persons in Shelters in the West
Tonight, there are about twelve families, or over fifty persons, in shelters at the Bishop Martin Primary School in San Ignacio and the school in Calla Creek in the west. These persons were removed from their homes to avoid casualties as a result of the rising flood waters. Including in the group is a couple who on Wednesday, refused to leave their property just behind the San Ignacio Hospital. Mayor Earl Trapp spoke with News Five about the evacuation exercise, while NEMO’s Coordinator Al Westby spoke about sheltering these residents during COVID times.
Al Westby, Central Regional Coordinator, NEMO
“Since last night we’ve been on the ground, especially in the Calla Creek area. At this point, we have people in shelters in Calla Creek. Up to eleven o’clock today, we had about forty-five persons, which is equivalent to about six to seven families. We attended to these people in the shelters with food supplies, water and things like that.”
Earl Trapp
Earl Trapp, Mayor, San Ignacio/Santa Elena
“Two members of the family behind the hospital that refused to come out, they just called wanting support to evacuated them because water had circled the house already. So NEMO just sent out personnel to evacuate them as well, so hopefully within the next half hour, they should be out from that area. The people that were evacuated yesterday and taken to the old hospital, which is now NICH, they are being relocated as we speak.”
Duane Moody
“With COVID times that is also a challenge with putting up people.”
Al Westby
Al Westby
“Oh yeah, definitely because we have a special COVID-19 protocol in shelters; unless you are one family, then the numbers would be different. But we stick to that and we continuously make sure that we do no more than ten per room, as long as the spacing is there. It is very challenging with the limited amount of space that we have within the school area. Most of them are schools that we have to use and as you know, election is right around the bend and some of these schools will be used as polling stations.”
