Landmarks also damaged by Richard
We’ve reported extensively on the many victims whose lives were interrupted by the passage of Hurricane Richard. At least two hundred houses were devastated by the ferocious storm on Sunday night. Many families are starting over while others are making good on the little that was left behind. Earlier today, News Five’s Delahnie Bain took a look at the city’s landmarks that were also damaged by the category one hurricane.
Delahnie Bain, Reporting
Days after Hurricane Richard swept through Belize, there is still a lot of mopping up to be done. We’ve seen homes that toppled over in the heavy winds and today we found that there was water damage to numerous important buildings. Wesley College, St. John’s Cathedral and the Bliss Center are among the many structures that did not escape the intensity of rains and winds due to their proximity to the sea.
Brenda Armstrong, Principal, Wesley College
“The whole lawn, right up to the gate; branches of trees, bottles, even five gallon oil bottles, which I don’t think we use here, bits of Styrofoam. It’s such a pity that that substance isn’t biodegradable because it just goes into little pieces and they all washed onto the land. The storm surge came up in our yard about three to four feet—from the marks on the wall we can tell that—and then when it subsided, everything it had in it was left. So it was quite a sight; not to forget the inches of mud that was deposited.”
Chris Gordon, Sexton, St. John’s Cathedral
chris gordon
“I was the second person to come here but the mud was still here. It was filthy basically from the dredging that they did earlier and all that high water mixed with the rough wind; basically all of that filled in.”
Greg Vernon, Director, Institute of Creative Arts
“What we found was a water damaged Bliss Center. It was because of the glass structure that was placed in, it was not reinforced well enough and so the pressure of the surge brought it crumbling down and brought it into the Bliss Center.”
The water, mud and debris have taken days of hard work to clean up. In fact, it took at least fifty B.D.F. soldiers and other workers to tackle the mess that was left at the Wesley College compound.
Brenda Armstrong
brenda armstrong
“I must say it took the concerted effort of at least four battalions from the B.D.F. plus the City Council trucks and back hoe; loads and loads of trucks filled up with garbage going out of this yard has restored it to where we can see the ground although some of our fill went with the dirt.”
Greg Vernon
“We have a great staff so we came in Monday and we started work right away. We bailed and shoveled and bailed and shoveled out water and so we got it back together. We dried out the entire place. Fortunately the seating, the furniture for the Bliss Center were not wet. It was only the floors, which was a good saving grace for us.”
Chris Gordon
“What we first did, we moved the pews. We had to get everything out of the way, basically make big areas accessible. Then next we power washed it, we had to borrow someone’s power washer because we didn’t have any on hand. After that we did a whole lot of mopping because after the mud left there was water so we had to get rid of the water.”
And even after all that cleaning, there are still some finishing touches to restore the properties to some normalcy.
Chris Gordon
“Right now we still have to go back do finishing mopping because even though the water is out, we still have stains. We’re waiting for some of the carpets to dry because we have massive carpet damage.”
Brenda Armstrong
“Today the students are washing furniture; the mud was splashed up on the sides, almost when you went in the classroom it smelled like you were right at the sea at the fish market kinda. So we have to get rid of that fishy smell. The mud in itself is not too healthy so we are sanitizing after the furniture dries and disinfecting all the classrooms.”
greg vernon
Greg Vernon
“We’re happy to say that we are back up and running again. I think with a few little glitches we should be up and running by tomorrow morning fully.”
Delahnie Bain for News Five.
