Portions of Boom Flooded Out
Nine families in Burrell Boom are flooded out as a portion of the main road in the village is submerged. Shelters in the Belize River Valley area remain open, as Iota is expected to dump more water on central and southern Belize. Today, aside from relief and supplies being issued by the National Emergency Management Organization in the area, residents are being advised to prepare for water levels to rise. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
The banks of the Belize River are overflowing and while floodwaters in villages such as Lemonal, Rancho Dolores and majority of the Belize River Valley are receding, a vast number of houses remain under water. The Crooked Tree Lagoon is also spilling over into the area and hundreds of residents have had to leave their homes for higher ground; many others are put up in designated shelters.
Alpheus Gillett
Alpheus Gillett, Belize Rural Coordinator, NEMO
“We have people in shelters. In crooked tree we have families in shelters. In Rancho Dolores and Lemonal, yes there are still people in shelters. The water from the west is already here. In some areas, the water is still rising, but at a very slow pace. But our major concern will be the next storm approaching us. So our job that we have been doing since yesterday and this morning, we are contacting all village leaders, all community leaders. We are warning them, asking them what is their plan, where will they move to; what will they do with their assets.”
Further down the river, in Burrell Boom, a portion of the main road, near the police station, is under about two to three feet of water and is impassable by small vehicles. It has flooded an area just across from Belize R Us and seven families or roughly twenty-five persons, including the Seguras, have to wade through three feet of water to get in and out of their houses. Some use a boat to traverse this area.
Itie Segura
Itie Segura, Resident, Burrell Boom Village
“It started from the back at the lake, well the pond over that side. It raised and I wake up one morning and I woke up with fishes and water.”
Duane Moody
“As in you set down your foot in water.”
Itie Segura
“Yes sir. Like two inches of water and it was really devastating. Over there is like three feet of water; and then the farm also…our farm.”
Duane Moody
“Everything is under water.”
Itie Segura
“Yes sir.”
Kimberly Seguro
Kimberly Seguro, President, Community Disaster Response Team, Burrell Boom
“From since Friday, the water level start rising up. I believe that with the rain, if we have rain like this for the next two to three days, definitely the water will come across the road. Right now the river is very high and because it is very high, it is on the curve and all the way up; coming into the culvert across and it gets into the pond. And because the pond is overfull has it like this in the yard. We have six houses under water right now in the yard. To get to the back where there is the next three houses, they have to use the canoe. They can’t walk there because the water is deep. If you walk to my house, the water is almost to my waist.”
Kimberly Segura is the President of the Community Disaster Response Team for the Burrell Boom Village. She has been monitoring the water levels and has been in close contact with NEMO.
Kimberly Seguro
“They do not want to come out and go to the shelters as yet. The shelters are already open. I am asking them to come out and move early; don’t wait till it is too late. The weather that is out there is calling for more rain and I know with more rain, we will get more water. I have been able to speak with them, but they don’t want to move as yet. Right now, I am trying to get in contact with people that live across the river and people who live down the road by the bridge and by Black Orchid.”
For some areas affected, relief and supplies are being distributed by NEMO; those include donations and pantry supplies from the Belize Red Cross. NEMO Belize Rural Coordinator, Alpheus Gillett says that they have been to most villages and today, they head to May Pen where some twenty families have been cut off from the rest of the district.
Alpheus Gillett
“Most of the villages within the Belize River Valley have seen some rise of water. In the Lemonal and Rancho the water is now receding, but in terms of relief and supplies for those communities, they have been provided with food supplies, water supplies and the assessment and the work continues.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
