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Zenaida Moya-Flowers, Mayor of Belize City
"We met today in the morning and in the afternoon. We convened a meeting this afternoon as well just to ensure that whatever we had decided upon, we were fully activated as a committee. what we are looking at right now to deal with is the possibility of flooding and clearly we know that there are certain prone areas in the city namely the Belama Phases 3 and 4 area, the Jane Usher Boulevard area and of course we do have certain other areas; Castle Street and York Street around those areas and sporadically other areas may flood as well but clearly those are the flood prone areas in the city. What we are doing; we are really appealing to people, we are fully in the best manner in terms of being able to handle flooding, however we would prefer that persons use the shelters as a last option because we are looking at flooding, we are hoping, and we are appealing to the residents, those people in those areas if they see that they will need assistance, they will need evacuation, we will ask that they call their family members who live in other areas or if there are neighbors who have higher homes that can accommodate them, for them to really look to those people first as a first option in terms of being able to man this storm during that time and even thereafter if there is flooding. It would be more comfortable to them anyway. In the event however that the individuals who are in those areas need a temporary shelter then and only then we as CEMO will activate and open shelters. Clearly our operation in the emergency center we will be open right through. It will be there in the event if anybody needs to make any calls the number is 227-0056 in the event anybody needs extra assistance. We will be doing our best to keep people calm because at the end of the day we simply want to be effective as possible and by that it means we cannot and will not simply just use our resources and not have to use it, we will try to be strategic in terms of using our resources."

And while that is the plan for the city, there is a much more elaborate plan for southern Belize - which has equally vulnerable communities - and its circumstances are complicated by flood prone villages and the fact that - at least - copious amounts of rain are expected.

We'll tell you what's the plan for the south a little later in the newscast as we talk to the NEMO national coordinator. And coming up in a few minutes we'll also have the full weather forecast.