Flooding up north: water levels continue to rise in San Antonio

Last week, News Five was in rural Orange Walk where communities on the banks of the Rio Hondo were experiencing signs of imminent flooding. In San Antonio, just twenty minutes out of Orange Walk Town, the road was already under two feet of water in some spots and rising. The rains continued to fall late last week and over the weekend, and today NEMO has had to move in to assist villagers in several communities. Late this afternoon we spoke to the Chairlady of San Antonio Isela Wade who told us that her village is surrounded by water, and there is much more rain expected.

Isela Wade

Via Phone: Isela Wade, Chairlady, San Antonio Village

“We have an increase in water…now the water has entered the village, passing through the bridge coming in the village…all that has water now. The situation is a little rough at the moment because now we need to pass the students in the vehicle from the village, then they cross over with the boats, then they need to get off the boats, go in a tractor and then get on the bus. So it’s a little more difficult and now there’s a rush because we have San Antonio, Santa Cruz and San Roman coming on this side going to Orange Walk.  NEMO has been…they came here yesterday to supervise and so we got a bus for the students free of charge so students that are going to high school or sixth form have the privilege of going first so they can move from the other side at six-thirty. And then the daily commuters can go on the Alamilla bus. NEMO has provided two boats for San Roman and two boats for San Antonio. They told us we are going to be getting more rains. Over the weekend we got a lot of rain so they told us that one Friday we will be getting more rain and it’s on the Rio Hondo. So water is still rising and I guess it will still go up.”

There is serious flooding reported in several other communities including Douglas and San Roman Rio Hondo. We’ll have images of those trouble spots in Wednesday’s newscast.