San Pedro ready again for tourists
What a difference a few weeks can make! At the end of October San Pedranos were staring in shock at their damaged piers and beachfronts. But today, the islanders are once again welcoming visitors to La Isla Bonita. News Five, which showed you the damage right after Hurricane Mitch, was invited out to San Pedro again this week to see what a lot of determination — and elbow grease — can accomplish in a very short time.
Life on San Pedro, Ambergris Caye is back to normal, just over a month after the island sustained damage to its beaches, piers, dive shops, and streets. According to Patty Arceo, the area representative, the clean up, which was a joint effort by government, the town board and the residents themselves, took only two weeks to complete.
Patty Arceo, Area Representative
“We had some heavy equipment coming in from the Ministry of Works and besides that, we allocated some funds through the government to hire people. I think we had fifty people out on the streets, on the beaches working. And then the same beach owners and owners of dive shops and the piers up in front, they had their staff working. We had some people from the hotels, restaurants taking off a day and coming over to help. We also had the San Pedro High School making it a whole day community project and coming in to help.”
Most of the island’s piers and dive shops that were completely washed away by the storm surge are being rebuilt, as hundreds of planks of lumber are brought over from the mainland and quickly unloaded. Arceo says it was equally important for them to correct an old problem that now requires pier and dive shop owners to abide by certain building standards.
Patty Arceo
“We had asked people to come in to the town board to meet with the Ambergris Caye planning committee so that we can give permission to rebuild piers and dive shops. Of course some specifications were given because of Hurricane Mitch, we wanted people to start rebuilding on some standards and that’s the one we set forth to the people and I am so happy to see many of them did come and reapply for their piers and are paying an annual fee and we are working much better.”
Tourist arrivals on the island also look promising and it is hoped that by the high season, around the middle of December, things will be back in full swing. We were surprised to see that the tackle Box Bar and Coral Reef Dive Shop, which were both blown away by the high wind and water, were not only near completion, but the dive shop was back in business taking divers out on one of its many exotic trips.
Allan Forman, Owner, Coral Reef Dive Shop
“First of all we start from scratch and it took us three weeks to have everything set up and ready to go. We did have quite a bit of cancellation but we started to send e-mail to them.”
Patty Arceo
“Unfortunately we have had some publicity that was negative in the fact that we had some people canceling because of what had happened and we will not be picking up our tourist season until the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth of December. Some of them had postponed their reservations all the way til February but services here on the island were, right after Mitch, were still going on twenty-four hours a day. As you can hear in the background, people are still rebuilding and we are looking forward for the tourists to be coming back on the fifteenth of December.”
Jacqueline Woods
“Ramon’s Village was one of the resorts hardest hit. Today, not only has its beach been cleaned of the debris that had accumulated in front of the place, but a new pier is being built and a temporary dive shop has also been erected.”
The resort, like other destinations along the seafront, also gained a considerable amount of beach because of the storm. However, for those places that lost some sand, Mayor Alberto Nuñez says there are plans underway to reclaim at least sixty-six foot strip of beach.
Alberto Nuñez, Mayor, San Pedro, Ambergris Caye
“And then we want to recover the beaches and make them bigger. If we get a chance, we have a chance. The dredge is supposed to be here by next weekend so during the time the dredge will be here we are planning on extending the beaches, better beaches, bigger beaches so it will make the place look much better.”
Similar work will also be conducted on Caye Caulker. According to Arceo, much of the beach on that caye has been cleaned and all services are now up and running.
While cleaning up the main resort area was a priority, there is still some work to be done in the northern areas known as San Juan in which some streets were damaged.
