NEMO Minister says it could have been worse

Melvin Hulse

Everyone agrees that Richard was quite a storm. Although the mood at NEMO headquarters was celebratory because it could have been far worse, Minister of NEMO Melvin Hulse was surprisingly quite stern. Hulse spoke of the coordinated effort and the fact that lives could have been lost because many people did not heed the warnings and advisories before the hurricane. Hulse said many of the calls for rescues could have been avoided, particularly at Gales Point.

Melvin Hulse, NEMO Minister

“Our job is to get the word across. I know you expected a lot of technical things because this is a wakeup call. It’s a hundred miles an hour guys, it’s a category one; that dah no big breeze. Trust me in relations to describing hurricanes and understanding the magnitude and the destructiveness of a hurricane, category one is a joke. It is literally a joke, but that joke messed up a citrus industry, affected two hundred homes across the country, put people into shelter, almost had people’s lives been lost. In Belmopan which was complacent over the years, you see what has happened—you can become the eye—and you did become the eye. One of the things that I appreciate happening was that we were passing announcements over the radio: if you do not thing your house could handle fifty miles per hour wind, get out. We can build back, but we cannot replace life. We are telling you to go into shelters that are safer. We know what wind force that shelter can take, we’re not guessing. And you took a hundred miles an hour wind and then call in the idle of a storm (at gust of a hundred and fifteen miles an hour) you’re gonna call in Love FM and say please come rescue me? No man. We can safe this nation. The Prime Minister and government will find a way to build back afterwards. NEMO information is not the creation of me sitting in my office at two o’clock in the morning or Noreen in her office putting the things together or Sheldon; we meet nonstop—that door is never closed. So what information is released is official and factual. Please let us save your life. WE sent vehicles to Gales Point and no. We were getting word, it is moving to Gales Point original it was set to go to Goldson Point and then eventually right over Gales Point. We sent VACA vehicle again with police and B.D.F. and they insisted not to move. You realize that they could have been wiped out. I mean gosh guys. My staff knows what we talking about. I don’t want know other message to come across but the fact is trust us. When time to evacuate you, it will be good. When we tell you yes go to the shelter, go. We’ll have less problem. No wait til go dah pound yard at one o’clock the morning and seh yoh wet. Or somebody call and seh I lef mi ma by wah river that’s flooding. Man that dah yoh ma. Go get ahn early. We give you warning we talk we advice that is our job.”

As we said earlier, the damages have been put at thirty-three million, but that’s preliminary. A more precise figure will be determined in days to come when the full impact of the hurricane will be further assessed.