Recovery efforts get underway in Calla Creek

Around the country, there are many touching stories of how the flooding has disrupted life in communities from the south all the way to the north. Waters are beginning to go down slowly in some communities and the process of recovery is underway following the torrential rains in the past week. Rural areas in the Belize District are still under threat and another wave of rain is predicted in the next twenty-four hours. Our first report tonight is from the village of Calla Creek in the Cayo District that suffered extensive damages. Marion Ali and cameraman Chris Mangar paddled through muddy waters to get to the community.

Marion Ali, Reporting
Although the flood water has receded seven feet in Calla Creek, it is still high and moving swiftly as we discovered when we visited today. The village is only accessible by small boats and that’s how the Cayo District’s Emergency Management Organization was taking food and water provisions to the residents. Heading the effort is volunteer, William Swan, who abandoned his own plans of moving his herd of sheep in order to evacuate the villagers. Swan says right now they are focusing on helping people rebuild their lives.

William Swan, Pres., DEMO Volunteer Committee
“The recovery is to help the people get back their buildings back together, clean out the buildings. We have people that are washing out, the B.D.F. clean out the street and we still supplying people with water and food. And so far some of the people already assist us themselves in getting their building put back together. So what we are doing, we’re going house to house to help with chemicals and things so that they can really wash out the building because the water is very contaminated at this time.”

Marion Ali
“What has been your observation of the damages to structural buildings?”

William Swan
“Structure-wise we done have much building damage, but their properties inside the buildings, all the buildings that were under water, have a large damage with their household use.”

One of the villagers who lost most of his cattle and household appliances is Peter Margesson.

Peter Margesson, Lost Herd and Household Appliances
“I had a devastating loss. I had seventy-five pigs when the flood started and there are only eight remaining on my farm right now. My residence, the water was completely over the roof, my vehicles were completely submerged, my generator is gone. I’ve had devastating losses.”

Marion Ali
“You couldn’t take them to higher ground or you just had nowhere to go?”

Peter Margesson
“The pigs are very difficult to move once they get all nervous. We managed to move six hundred sheep. My losses in my sheep were minimal in comparison to what I’ve lost with other things. The vehicles we couldn’t move because of the mud; they were stuck and obviously the generator is a big generator. It’s fixed to the ground and no time to move. The flood came very, very quickly. By the time I heard the area was flooding, we had about three hours to get everything moved and we did what we could.”

Marion Ali
“So how much would you estimate in terms of money?”

Peter Margesson
“It’s too early to suggest anything right now but I know just the pigs amount to twenty-five thousand dollars and then there’s all my personal possessions and my house, I left with just a change of clothing.”

But Swan believes some people could have avoided the huge loss of livestock if only they had heeded the warnings.

William Swan
“What happen, some of the people take too long to evacuate themselves and we had to do all of that. It took us like in the few hours we evacuated like fifty something people. We start nine in the night and we finished like five in the morning.”

Marion Ali
“Is there any one scenario where you really had to go out and really put an extra effort into it?”

William Swan
“Well, so many scenarios happened that… for example, right here across the river where they had some guys were swimming and the canoe tilt over and there was a vessel in the area that assist them and people were in trees hung up and we had to take them off and bring them across. We have a lot of loss of crops everywhere, as you can see here behind me right here we have a lot of corn. We use a lot of corn in the area. The farmers they lose cattle. We saw pigs and sheep going down the water. The Saturday when the water really rise then we had pig and thing floating down the river.”

Marion Ali
“So right now as far as the health of the water, it’s not very safe.”

Williams Swan
“Well, the water is not safe. What we do, we ask the people not to drink the water. we provide all the villagers, through the minister and the ministries, to drinking water and we have a purified system.”

And while efforts will now focus on recovery, there was still evidence of animals that perished while trying to flee to higher ground, such as this boa constrictor and this lamb. Nearby, these pigs scoured through the marshy creek bank for a drink of water.

In retrospect, Swan says while it was not easy getting people out of their homes, it was a successful operation because there was no loss of human life.

William Swan
“In this area we evacuate approximately thirty odd people from the area. They had given us a little bit of resistance to move out but I convinced them and so we got them out of the area. And now the people are in the shelter and when they saw us they thank us because they didn’t know it could have been this terrible.”

Marion Ali
“Okay, The water is running really swiftly as we discovered upon arrival. That’s what you’ve had to deal with since?”

William Swan
“Yes, what we had to do is to go around and try to fight the current and evacuate the people from the area. But we try to put a boat in the river with only two horse power engine and it was impassable. So what we did we have to attack this village from both sides of the river.”

And while Margesson says he has never seen a flood such as this in the area, he is not deterred from remaining in Calla Creek, despite his misfortune.

Marion Ali
“Are you planning to relocate?”

Peter Margesson
“No, I have a lot of capital investment in the village and that’s my home, that’s where I’m staying.”

Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.

In the Belize River Valley waters continue to rise and most communities are still inaccessible.