Early flood warning system for Belize River Valley

The Japanese International Corporation Agency is assisting the National Emergency Management Organization along with technical experts from the National Met Service to install a flood early warning system for the Belize River Valley.  The area is prone to severe flooding and the equipment will enable the residents to detect when they are in danger of flooding. Chief Met Officer, Dennis Gonguez, told News Five today that the project, financed by Japan, should take one year to be completed.

Dennis Gonguez, Chief Met Officer

dennis gonguez

“Presently the team from Japan are in Belize and they’re out in the field looking at locations where we can place automatic river monitoring stations.  We’re working on a sense of ownership, that we will try give the communities these instruments so that they can say this belongs to us, we’ll monitor it and we’ll alert the National Met Service and NEMO whenever there’s a flood event. Whenever  there’s a flood event occurring there will be an alarm and we will be notified that the Belize River Valley, the river is reaching critical levels.”

Gonguez says that a similar project was completed with donations from the Organization of American States that entailed the installation of river monitoring stations for the Rio Hondo in the north.  Stations were placed at Douglas, San Antonio and Blue Creek.