Funding still needed for hurricane shelter improvements
No one likes to be reminded about the panic last October when Belize City residents headed inland, or crowded city shelters to avoid Hurricane Mitch. But the experience taught us a great deal about disaster preparedness, or rather our lack of preparedness. To see where we are today and what needs to be done, a one day symposium funded by the Organization of American States and organized by the Ministry of Housing was held at the Radisson Fort George. The participants, including representatives of National Emergency Management Organization, had some tough issues to deal with. Chief among them is the state of the hurricane shelters. And it doesn’t look good.
The hurricane season is from June to November but it is not until the month of August that things begin to get very active in the Caribbean and Central America. This year fourteen storms and hurricanes are predicted to pass through the region. Whether they will affect Belize is anyone’s guess, but we should be prepared just in case. Last year’s brush with Mitch made everyone realize that our shelters were in bad shape, many even unusable. The government immediately secured the services of consultants to evaluate the shelters and made recommendations for improvement. Apparently there is still much work to be done, and the cost is great.
Philip Brackett, Chairman, Housing and Shelter Committee
“A detailed assessment has been done to determine precisely what needs to be done to each shelter in terms of how many people the shelter can accommodate, in terms of facility, in terms of laundry facilities, in terms of bathroom facilities and so government has gone ahead and done that and has completed that. The rudimentary or elementary report indicates that we will have to spend some 20 million dollars to retrofit the existing hurricane shelters and, as you know that will be a big drain in the budget. And so as far as I understand from NEMO and the coordinator of NEMO, government is trying to secure these funds, the necessary funds to retrofit all the existing shelters and perhaps to do, to construct some more shelters.”
Although government is fully aware of the state of the shelters, it cannot do much until it secures the necessary funds. This means, right now, at the height of the hurricane season, Belize’s shelters are not in any better shape than they were last year. It is a problem that is not being taken lightly.
Philip Brackett
“Government is indeed taking it very seriously and is working as quickly as it can to get these shelters going. The reality if a hurricane hits there will be some shelters ready and some will not be ready. That is the reality, the harsh reality.
If we had the money the day after Mitch and we had started to retrofit, at this point in time we still would not have been able, I think, in my opinion, to complete the retrofitting. But some work has started on some of the buildings and the work is going on while government is seeking the funding to do the rest of work.”
While the government wrestles with financing issues, the ordinary citizen is being asked to do his or her part to save life and property if disaster strikes this year. Justin Hulse, Acting Chief Meteorologist says during Mitch people made a lot of mistakes that could have cost them their lives if the storm had struck Belize.
Justin Hulse, Acting Chief Meteorologist
“Some people were unaware that a dangerous hurricane was coming. Some were still in their house and many of the houses were one flat houses near the sea. I think that would have been a disaster.
Each person should have a personal plan. There will come a time when you will need to react and you will have to tend to yourself and you will also have to be a part of the whole trend of the nation moving away from the threat of a hurricane. So it is a plan you will need.”
Philip Brackett
“There are lots of ways in which the individual person can be prepared. One of the things that I noticed with Mitch is the fact that we immediately had to go into our pockets when Mitch came because we had to be buying shutters. You had to be buying extra food. You will notice that maybe the average Belizean family spent eight hundred dollars more or a thousand dollars more when Mitch came. So this is just an example. You have to try to be prepared economically.
Make contact with your family out in Belmopan, out in San Ignacio, out in Cayo. You know how you can get out there, what you can do. The kind of linkages with family, with friends. There are just a whole lot of things that can be done.”
Brackett says the Housing and Shelter Committee will be doing its part to inform the public about what to do in case a hurricane does threaten, or God forbid, hit Belize this year.
Jacqueline Woods for News Five.
Some Belize City families have come up with their own solution to the shelter problem in Belize City by renting houses in Belmopan on a short term basis in case they need to evacuate. Reports are as many as thirty houses are already rented out.
