Viewers may remember that in August, Hurricane Ernesto threatened Belize, and as a part of its projected path, Belize City was also an expected target.
It never hit, but according to Belize City's Emergency Management Organization, there were some SNAFU'S that they encountered, which they would like to eliminate before another natural disaster threat.
A major issue that they encountered was that there were mass phone calls made to the CEMO emergency operating center for evacuations, which proved difficult because majority of the persons had disabilities.
Well, CEMO wants to know exactly where these disabled citizens located that so that they can effect a better evacuation plan.
And the way they will find out is by doing a survey, in which they want to utilize high school children across the city to go out and record the data.
Today, they continued meetings with several of the high school principals to finalize the plans.
Phillip Willoughby, the councilor in charge of CEMO explained how the program is expected to work:
Phillip Willoughby - Councilor in Charge of CEMO
"Because they have centralized human resources in a particular structure, we're saying that they can utilize and implement their theoretical learning in a practical environment, which will show community service, goodwill, and build capacity for the recognition of these secondary schools by virtue of executing and engaging in such a survey. With regards to the budget, we will be kicking off a pilot project, sometime within the third week of November. It is from within that, we will then start to build up a budget for that particular initial exercise, see the costs, and then, as we look forward into what we will consider now, that the city will be zoned off in various sections, and the schools will be assigned to a particular zone, and based on the size of that zone, we will attach a cost. So, we will run a pilot, and from that, we will derive a budget."
There has been no timeline announced as to when this program will start.
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