William Neal of Open Your Eyes discusses Hurricane Aftermath

We’re joined on set by William Neal, also my co-host on Open Your Eyes. William did a fly-over earlier today of the affected areas in the central and southern regions of Belize.

William Neal

“You get an idea of the devastation in small shots when you are on the ground. But it gives you a bird’s eye view of what happens countrywide and its very fascinating. We are going to talk through some of the VO and we start off seeing places like old Belize.”

Marleni Cuellar

“Is that the pier that is completely covered?”

William Neal

“It’s completely gone.”

Marleni Cuellar

“Oh it’s gone.”

William Neal

“Yeah and as we made our way along the coast, it’s almost as if someone just took their hand and started playing with trees. There we have a jet ski obviously lost. A lot of the foliage along the coast was just toppled over like someone again playing God so to speak and just took a hand and knocked down tress and said I’m here, I’m here, I’m here; respect me, my name is Richard. Of course it is very difficult to see it from the air because it is so fresh. Now when we got to Gales Point, Manatee.”

Marleni Cuellar

“This is actually one of the areas where the eye passed over—the direct path of the storm itself.”

William Neal

“There was quite a bit of damage there. Of course earlier in the day, we know they had to send in a special bus to take down some of the villagers. And it was indeed a good move. Quite a number of homes in Gales Point had their roofs damaged in some way shape or form and some lost it totally. So I think that’s probably one of the more devastated areas in terms of exactly what happened.”

Marleni Cuellar

“We can see some of the damages to the houses here.”

William Neal

“Today was such a beautiful day in terms of how clear it was. It looks as if though nothing happened and what a difference twenty-four hours really makes. There you have some more of the homes in Gales Point, Manatee. You look there and it’s not necessarily only the poorer houses or the poorer areas where you had devastation. It was really one of those situations where you are looking at it and it’s almost surreal you know because it is as if though someone just peeled back the zinc roof and just had their way with everything. That’s the end with Gales Point, Manatee right there. We had a really good time in terms of view of what was happening on the ground. Of course, being in a chopper as oppose to a plane allowed us to get a closer view to the devastation on the ground. We continued going south. It was like in a strange corridor and fortunately for Belize. We’re now in the Mullins River Area and what was fascinating you had a clearing where there were a couple houses in the Mullins River Area but around that clearing you had huge foliage being destroyed in every area, but yet the houses were spared. In a few days if you were to take the same trip down helicopter, because the trees would start dying you’d see a brown area clearly denoting where the damage had taken place.”

Marleni Cuellar

“And of course, we can see how the river itself is swollen. Our conversation with Mister Tench saying actually the flood waters will have more waters after a couple of days.”

William Neal

“And this is one of the aquaculture farms and obviously they suffered a lot of damage. I think two buildings had significant damage and one obviously was flattened to the ground and you have debris thrown all over the compound. As we made our way more to Dangriga, we came up to the orchards and a cursory (just from the surface) it looks as though nothing happened to them and then the pilot, Gustavo, brought us much closer down and you could see that all the fruit from the trees were completely on the ground—covered with nothing but oranges. I guess the wind shook all the trees and the fruit just fell. I don’t know what will happen now.”

Marleni Cuellar

“We know that will obviously have an impact on the industry itself in terms of when they normally use their produce noh?”

William Neal

“And this is either a banana or plantain area and it was completely gone and of course those trees tend to be very soft—the sap of it—and it was completely wiped out—again right outside of Dangriga. As you are looking at it, it’s unreal because it looks as if though someone just chose particular areas to just flatten.”

Marleni Cuellar

You know what image it reminds me of? You know the twelve o’clock plants that we have in Belize where you touch one part and it just flattens. This is completely and it’s obviously moving in the direction of the wind itself.”

William Neal

“And as we went into Dangriga itself we saw some houses obviously affected. Isani and I were having a conversation earlier and he said quite a number of homes destroyed were those owned by very poor people and they are the ones often displaced in very difficult circumstances. He has some interesting stories as well. That was actually an excavator, a digger. I guess it was doing some work along the banks of the river and it is actually flattened in the water itself.”

Marleni Cuellar

“It’s submerged.”

William Neal

“Totally submerged. And this is our return to Belize City where that is the Princess Hotel and Marina except there is no marina any more. The pier is completely gone. And we started going around Belize City and you didn’t see much in terms of the roof being torn off, but you did see the devastation along the coast itself. As I said that is the Princess Hotel and Marina.”

Marleni Cuellar

“Well if we flash back to some of Marion’s coverage during Hurricane Richard Updates, we saw the extent of the power of the waves and the winds as they were coming in and obviously they wreaked their havoc on the piers that were out there. This is Radisson now?”

William Neal

“If you think Princes was bad, take a look at this. This is what was the Radisson Fort George Pier. Remember the pagoda-like structure that they had there, it’s totally flattened. It’s like somebody decided to take each plank and just go [thud, thud, thud] until they were gone. So the entire pier for Radisson is gone.”

Marleni Cuellar

“This was one of the buzzed about things this morning being able to be a really good measurement of the amount of damage and the amount of power that was there because it was one of the first things that we started hearing. And you couldn’t really imagine it until you are able to see it there.”

William Neal

William Neal

“And the bird’s eye view of it gives you a good shot of exactly what happened. You can’t even gain access to it anymore. That was one of the shockers being up there. Of course and we made our way around fort point, we also noticed Bellevue, the roof is entirely gone off Bellevue. And not too far down the road from there, of course the bliss centre suffered quite a bit of damage as well.”

Marleni Cuellar

“There was some damage to the wall there as well.”

William Neal

“That gives you a good idea and we went south, but you can also go west to Belmopan and Cayo where you also had significant damage to foliage all the way through the corridor of the path of Hurricane Richard.”

Marleni Cuellar

“I think that what we are seeing is impacts of the wind especially we’re not seeing much inundation that can happen as well compared to other flyovers where you see a lot of water after the floods had taken place. But it definitely shows that the damage is beyond what we have been able to see.”

William Neal

“Being in a helicopter you get a clear idea of how it worked and it was not a straight line, it was like someone with a lawnmower or stuff just cutting in random areas, the foliage as we made our way south. So definitely quite a bit of damage fortunately for us it was uninhabited area in most cases. I think you’d probably have to go on the ground in Belize City. The cluster of the houses didn’t make it as apparent. Probably around the Caesar Ridge Area, Yarborough Area, you’ll see a bit more but on the ground like we saw earlier this morning when we had the opportunity to go around by truck.”