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Much of the villages of Lemonal, Rancho and Crooked Tree are under water tonight. But there is good news from Lemonal Village where residents tell us that the river has stopped rising. It is however, still rising still rising in Rancho Dolores. But the situation – by all indications is under control: the coast guard and medical and humanitarian teams of volunteers have been active in the flood affected communities today. Very few families have been moved to shelters, though a good number of flood affected persons have gone to higher ground with friends and family. Jacqueline Godwin was in the very flooded Crooked Tree community today and she has this report.

Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
Four days on our return to Crooked Tree Village we found the entire causeway under five feet of water. The flood had spread inland threatening homes along the banks of the lagoon. Some houses like the property of Leylan Tillett were surrounded by the water and the family was next on the list to be moved to higher ground. Already several families had to be evacuated and are now being sheltered at the Baptist Church. That is where we found two of the evacuees Deon Crawford and Violet Moulton.

Deon Crawford, Resident – Crooked Tree
“Very inconvenient, everything is under water right now.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
How do you plan to recover from all of this?

Deon Crawford,
“Well I don’t know. I could just depend on government to help us if they possibly could noh.”

Violet Moulton, Resident - Crooked Tree Village
“Well this morning because I yesterday I watched the water and it didn’t look like it would come so fast but this morning when I woke up for my babies to go to school I watched the water actually coming into the yard and I decided I had to go because I couldn’t wait for the place to get flooded so then I decided to move out.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
You believe the water will continue to rise?

Violet Moulton,
“Yes and it will go high too, much much higher than this.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Eventually you believe the water will go inside your house?

Violet Moulton,
“Yes it will go in there. Actually by tomorrow evening water will be in there.”

The Belize Audubon Society has been helping the flood victims to move. According to bas assistant park director Derrick Hendy, it has been an emotional operation for the families

Derrick Hendy, Assistant Park Director
“They are very frustrated because families really don’t like to move and by moving them they are saying they want to move but they are seeing the water coming so they had to make a decision to move because in the night time as NEMO are saying you cannot move at night so this is the time that you should move in the day time. So they are making that decision. Since morning I have already moved four families and we have one more to move. We have one boat here moving people from one place to the other, back and forth to continue their daily life and also by moving people from out of the house to higher grounds, that’s what the Belize Audubon Society is playing out here as we manage this protected area.”

The Belize Audubon Visitors Centre is also surrounded by water but the popular Bird’s Eye View Lodge has been hard hit by the flood. It will take about three months for tourism to return to normal but the community is doing what it can to cope.

George Guest, Chairman - Crooked Tree Village
“We are still surviving and with the help of NEMO and the Area Representative and a few people in the village and people in Orange Walk, we will survive. The water is not going to chase us from Crooked Tree. Transportation, some people kept vehicles over this side and we are using them to ferry people around the village. And the ones on the other side will do the running around on the other side of the lagoon. We are using boats too.”

While in Crooked Tree Village 23 families are expected to be impacted by the flood, here in Flower’s Bank life continues as normal. We found Sharon Robinson hard at work baking Johnny cakes by fire hearth at the back of her property. Robinson says although the water has risen somewhat over the past four days she does not expect it to spill onto her land although it is situated along the river bank because it sits on high ground.

Sharon Robinson, Resident – Flowers’s Bank
“A few inches more, yes it did raise a few inches more but not that much and in the lower part of the land you can see the water is spreading, it is not rising up that way. It is just spreading over the land so…”

Jacqueline Godwin,
If the rains keep up, you believe it is going to get worse in Flower’s Bank?

Sharon Robinson,
“I guess so, at least some parts of the village. It will get worse.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
But right now you feel secured where you are?

Sharon Robinson,
“Yes I do. I am not scared. As the Area Representative says, everybody here is saying we’ve been living all these years and the flood, we had a flood in ‘79 and it didn’t affect us so I don’t think this one will affect us that much either.”

But we did see one house across from the Belize River already affected by the water. While we were able to make it into Flowers Bank the same cannot be said for Grace Bank Village. Thanks to the assistance of Dr. Alvaro Rosado we did manage to make it across in his Toyota Hilux. A tour of the community revealed that the flood waters have covered the community’s bridge and Grace Bank Resort is now an island.

The villagers from the surrounding areas say they will continue to monitor the situation and hope that the rains predicted to affect the country will not make life even more difficult for them. Jacqueline Godwin reporting for 7NEWS.

Both medical and humanitarian teams were in Rancho and Lemonal today doing checkups and distributing rations.