Belama resident feels like Noah

Heavy rains are not unwelcome in the television news business as the resulting flooding is usually good for at least one visually rich story. This week’s adverse weather is no exception, but as I discovered in the Belama Phase Three area of Belize City, there’s more to a flood than just water.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
It is not the first time that Hugh Bowden is walking through ankle deep water that has swamped his neighbourhood. In fact the well known mechanic of Belama Phase Three says it has been a seasonal battle trying to stay afloat since the family moved into the area eleven years ago.

The water has not only been flooding streets but people?s homes and yards. The Bowden family say they can hardly remember a time when their land has been completely dry. This picture dated 2000 shows the Bowden home surrounded by water. Notice the front entrance had a railing and three flight of stairs. Today the railing and steps are gone as Bowden had no choice but to remove them as he filled his property to keep the water out.

Hugh Bowden, Resident, Belama Phase Three
?I have a lot of problems. I raised my kids inside the house. I am trying to get the water out of my yard. I keep filling my yard. I put a hundred and seventy-five load of stuff inside my yard.?

Measures were taken to address the problem by filling the streets and Bowden says two weeks ago City Councillor Anthony Michael and an engineer visited the neighbourhood in an effort to see what could be done. According to Bowden he objected when it was decided that a canal in the area would be opened to allow water to flow freely. But recent rains have caused the system to overflow and the water has now spilled onto the street. Bowden says because his house is already at ground level he is the one most affected.

Hugh Bowden
?If you look at the drain, it is going up a hill so from where the canal is the water will pour down to this area, where you see this lot of water is.?

?I feel if they cover the drain and open back the culvert and fix up back this street, that I am standing on, that I have been asking them to fix for the past twelve years the situation will be solved. But they do not want to do that.?

We do not know if it was our repeated phone calls to the City Council that prompted quick action by Councillor Michael but by late this evening he was in the area with a back hoe and culverts. Michael says besides an increase in rainfall there are other problems contributing to the flooding.

Anthony Michael, City Councillor
?We have had some drainage problems. We are looking at it and presently we have the equipment as you guys can see out here. We are trying to assist the neighbours. People should not be living in these kinds of conditions in these days and age. We have a culvert on the Northern Highway that is there to drain off the water going into the sea from the Belama area. Presently there is a dredging problem, and the person doing the dredging is running all their equipment and stuff through that particular culvert filling up the Belama Phase Four area. That is also good and that is also bad, but they don?t need to be running their equipment through the culvert. If the culvert was not clogged we would have had all these waters drained off and the residents back here wouldn?t have had this problem. Because of that situation we are trying to divert the drainage going into the canal and river in the Belama Phase Three area.?

Bill Lindo, Owner, W & S Engineering Limited
?No that is not so. I categorically deny that because the problem back there started many years ago when the late Javier Berbey was creating Belama Phase Three. It was never completed because sometime between ?93 and ?98, the then government cancelled the project. The problem there is the area is below the area level. They have to raise it. As far as my job is concerned the government has spent extra money building dikes, which I built back there, which was not in the original contract to protect people from the dredging water.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?That?s the residents who live in Belama Phase Four??

Bill Lindo
?Well there is no phase four yet. What you have are squatters that are in the future phase four. But no phase four as yet.

Belama Phase four is a new area created by illegal squatters that is quickly becoming another eyesore for the city.

Bill Lindo
?For phase three the land is too low. The land needs to be filled higher. Most of the land is below the water level and that is the problem. In phase four that won?t be a problem because my contract with the government, well not my contract but the company?s contract says that it has to be minimum at two and a half feet above the water level. So for phase three I do not know.?

Anthony Michael
?I am surprised that that they are filling up Belama Phase Four and we still have problems within the Belama Phase Three that need to addressed. I call on the Area Representative to come and assist in some of the problems that are happening out here.?