7 News Belize

City Ready For Hurricane Season
posted (June 1, 2015)
The hurricane season began today and the city council and City Emergency Management Organization held a press conference at City Hall to re-emphasise the importance of hurricane preparedness. Now, we see the hurricane preparedness commercials on the television, hear the announcements regularly over the radio and not to mention the daily weather report. While all that plays a crucial role in keeping the public updated during the hurricane season - having a detailed and efficient city emergency plan is equally important. Today the Mayor of Belize City outlined the major areas of focus:

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"The shelter management scheme is something that we treat very carefully so that when somebody comes into a shelter again there under the concern and control of CEMO, so that we look very very closely at safety, security issues, and comfort even. We look at our ability to ensure that the persons bring the necessary resources to the shelter so that that is something that always do at an incremental basis. There will never be any situation where you will see all shelters open just like that. So that we are trying to keep the public very up to date and informed in relation to how we also treat with the emergency from a management and organizational stand point including the management of resources. One of the things that we like to emphasize in relation to the shelter is that our emphasis again is on safety, the prevention of loss of life and the prevention of loss of any property that is brought within the shelter, so that our primary concern is safety and not comfort."

While the coordinators are managing the plan and ensuring that shelters and other services are provided for the public, the mayor says that, ultimately, it is up to you to stay informed and to devise a personal or family plan of your own in the event of a hurricane.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"Our planning is comprehensive and it becomes apparent in the entire year. We are planning for a hurricane from the close of the last hurricane season, but there will be a period when an emergency is declared. While we are ready it's not an emergency now. There will be a point when NEMO will indicate that there is an event of an emergency. That is when we will go into operation. We work very closely and under the direction of NEMO so that whatever we do, we will be implementers of directives. So that if there is a hurricane for example, there will be the hurricane warnings. There will be various updates. There will be collaboration and you will be in very close communication with them. They will issue a declaration or something which will say that this hurricane is going to come to Belize or we will feel some impact of that. Then we go into operation mode. We try to put out there that we want people to have an emergency plan. We want people to know where they will go in the event of a hurricane or other type of similar emergency and we ask if people can utilize their own resources or their own networking capabilities before coming into the public sphere."

There are 13 shelters in the city. On the topic of shelters, Mayor Bradley told us that if you must go to a shelter in the event of a hurricane, you should take 3 days' worth of food and water. Looking at the plan itself, a major setback that the emergency committee has to address is the accommodation of people with special needs and those who require medical assistance.

On a related note the National Meteorology Service sent out a hurricane season press release reiterating that this hurricane season is expected to be below or near average seas. It goes on by explaining quote, "the range for hurricane activity predicted for 2015 lies between 3 and 6. These reflect values at and below the average of 6 hurricanes. The average number of major hurricanes is 2." End quote. A list of names for the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season has also been published in the release with the first name being Anna, the last being Wanda. Others include Joaquin, Kate and Larry.

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