7 News Belize

Flooding In Corozal
posted (August 16, 2012)
Last week, Hurricane Ernesto made landfall in the southern areas of Mexico, with the Corozal District getting some of its effects. Corozal was very prepared for that storm and nothing much happened.

And, according to forecasts, tropical depression 7 for 2012 was supposed to bring only minor effects to the district, and as a result, no one was paying it much attention.

But, this system produced over 12 hours of rain, which resulted in unexpected wide-spread flooding in the low lying areas of the entire district, catching everybody off-guard.

NEMO Corozal and other authorities had to activate to help the villagers who were affected to evacuate and secure their personal items. 7News went to Corozal to see the effects of the flooding, and here's what we found out:

Daniel Ortiz reporting
More than 12 hours of rain has flooded the low lying villages in the Corozal District.

The downpour was enough to cover the highway at San Jose/San Pablo - Turn yards in to lakes in Concepcion; make rivers out of the streets in Libertad; form lagoons on the sides of the highway in San Joaquin and force the villagers to generally wait for the water level to lower after it entered their homes.

Some of them enjoyed the excess water; while others looked on in hopes that the storms would finish.

The bottom line is, however, that no one expected the heavy down pour.

Mayor Hilberto Campos - Vice Chair NEMO Corozal
"The people of Corozal weren't expecting so much rain to fall last night. Early this morning we woke up and found many areas flooded like the areas of Chula Vista which are in my opinion from what I have asses is the worst. People are 3-4 feet under water."

Willard Levy - District Coordinator, NEMO Corozal
"Too much water we had last night. As a result of that we had to open some shelters to assist people that were under water. In the Chula Vista layout which was the worst damage area - there were some areas that we under 3-4 feet of water and people and all their belongings got wet up. They requested assistance to move their belongings to a safe area to families and friends."

"We opened 4 shelters today namely CCC (Corozal Community College), Guadalupe RC, Xaibe RC and we also had Libertad Methodist - those were the shelters that were open. However up to midday today there were only 7 persons in the Guadalupe RC. People are not really particular in going into the shelters now, but rather removing their property and putting it into safe areas - to friends and relatives."

And the authorities moved to assist people perfecting their response over time.

Lionel Forte - Vice Chair, Corozal North Committee
"I got calls from people in our constituency, so immediate we got in touch with the minister and we start mobilizing. We came out here this morning from about 7:30-8:00 in the morning and all we had was that little raft there that we start pulling out, equipment; refrigerators and stoves from people houses. It's an ongoing thing; we've been out here from 7:30-8:00am this morning."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, I see that effort has increase from that raft to the dump trucks that are helping people."

Lionel Forte - Vice Chair, Corozal North Committee
"Absolutely, the minister got on the phone right away and he brought the dump trucks out and he bought the back hoe and we start bringing people out in the dump trucks. We had like 3 elderly ladies that we brought out on the little inflatable raft this morning and we put them in the truck and we brought them to the shelter. People just don't want to go to the shelters, I don't know why, we ask them from this morning to come out and go to the shelter - they refuse. Now the rain starts again."

But they are mainly concerned about the structural damage and the devastation to the agricultural sector in the north

Hon. Hugo Patt - Corozal North Representative
"The north of the country has been getting a double hit I can say. Just last week we had the advent of Hurricane Ernesto, while we did not have as much structural damages - there were indeed damages to crops but this situation we have with the flooding is something that is really disastrous. It caught people off guard and it's just a matter of raining 9-10 hours overnight and people as early as 3-4 o' clock started to call in and tell us their situation. We were out here from early in the morning and indeed the situation doesn't look any better as you would realize the rain is still hitting us and there is going to be severe damage structurally not only in areas here in Chula Vista but this I could safely say is throughout the north of the country."

Plans are being put together to assist with recovery as well as to alleviate the effects future flooding in the north

Hon. Hugo Patt - Corozal North Representative
"Definitely this matter has been address by NEMO. This is something we are going to discuss once the assessment is finish and certainly we would be looking into that matter as we will be looking into the matter that we are having presently."

"While we cannot do as much when it comes to the weather system but I am certain that there are measures that we can take to prevent especially such flooding to occur from in the near future."

When our News team left, there were still periods of intermittent rains, and NEMO expects that the rains could continue tonight, and possibly tomorrow.

We'll have more footage from the flooding later on in the newscast.

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