7 News Belize

City Cleanup Requires Unprecedented Effort
posted (August 5, 2016)
Now, the story of the storm and the mass terror it produced in the Belize district when houses started shaking and roofs starts coming loose is one thing, but the cleanup is the real story right now. For the past two days, City residents have been cleaning their homes and offices from a thick grey sludge that washed in with the storm surge. It's ugly and smelly stuff, and it destroyed items in hundreds of homes. Now that residents and workers have cleaned their homes and offices, the city council has to clean the streets. Today the Mayor told us the effort is intensifying this weekend:..

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"What we have determined to do generally speaking, is that we've divided the city into 3 areas if you will, the area from Central American Blvd and beyond that, then the area from central American Blvd unto the Caribbean sea and then the North side. We have been given additional support, tomorrow we'll have personnel from the forestry department who will assist us in cutting down some of the larger trees so that we can shorten the amount of debris that we have to move out of our way, then we will cart those away. We've also been getting significant support from the BDF in terms of personnel."

"One of the things that the city council also has done is that we have hired temporary workers to come on board to support our sanitation workers. we roughly have about 140 people right now on the ground together with about 15 backhoes and 15 opened trucks throughout Belize City cleaning the area, but we are recognizing that that is not near where we need to be in terms of having the city clean by at least Sunday evening for normal operations, say by Monday at 8 o'clock. We are trying to do as much as we can. One of the things that we were able to source also is that we have 2 water trucks gong throughout Belize City spraying off the streets. We also have been getting assistance from the fire department with one of their fire vehicles and we've prioritized the tourism areas, we've been coordinating with BTB to try to get at least the tourism assets up and running because we know that Belize will be a port of call on Tuesday. Their trying not to have any disruption in the tourism flow so that we have identified BTL Park, we've been cleaning that as thorough as we can, there is substantial damage there. We had a substantial structural damage to many of the booths, one of them was completely destroyed. We at least cleaning that area and making it moderately bearable and open for operations."

"We also identified substantial work that needs to be done along and surrounding the memorial park area and the area of the tourism zone. Memorial park took heavy sludge, there's a lot of mud and sludge in there so we've been working on that area from this morning in terms of having the fire truck spraying the streets and cleaning out memorial park. The priority right now is the carriage way and the access way so that we're not concentrated right now on cleaning people's yards. we've gotten a significant amount of calls that trees have fallen within people's yards and they want us to come in their yard, assist them in cleaning, assist them in cutting down trees, we are doing some of that but that's not the priority. The priority right now is the access ways for businesses, traffic, emergency vehicles and restoring the city back to operational normalcy. As soon as we finish those works and we expect that the bulk of the work will be finished by Sunday evening, then we will deploy additional resources and assets to help people with the work within their yard and within their area. We need residents to really come out to assist us with the cleanup efforts because it is quite substantial. I have done several tours together with councilor Willoughby throughout Belize city and every single lot that I have passed have been affected, if at least only by tree damage. So we want every single member of our community to assist in relation to the cleaning of their area even if they can assist in terms of cleaning in front of their yard. Right now our resources are stretched to capacity and we want the city to come back to full operation as soon as possible."

Phillip Willoughby, City Councilor, CEMO
"We will have personnel from the BDF, I don't have that figure but we anticipate it should be well enough strength to do what we need to get done. We do have personnel coming in from supporting ministries but when they arrive, then we will assign them. I can't give that exact figure but I am thinking the way we've coordinated the city, it will work beautifully and we will see and feel the impact within a matter of maybe between 12-24 hours, you will see a difference in the city."

Jules Vasquez
"You were here in 2010 when Richard struck, how does this compare in terms of the scope of the cleanup efforts to at Richard in gender?"

Phillip Willoughby, City Councilor, CEMO
"I think we are a leap and bound ahead of what happened with Richard. Like I said, my initial drive through at between 3am and 7am, looking at it and comparing back then, the damage has been phenomenal. I can't even measure it, but at the end of the day, I am bound to say that we will be accountable that we are getting value for money for whatever we are doing in terms of this clean up and I am saying that you will feel the impact between the next 2-3 days."

And to help move things along, here's what you can do to sort all the stuff you're throwing away:..

Phillip Willoughby, City Councilor, CEMO
"We would appreciate if persons would try at least at this moment to separate the debris of the garbage. That would facilitate us in coordinating specifically trees, debris, regular garbage or waste, and zincs and so forth so that it doesn't affect what is happening in terms of the normal scheme of operation at the transfer station and then moving to the landfill. So if residents are piling garbage and putting them out, please put shrubs, bushes, trees in one and just separate them kindly so as to assist us in transitioning to transfer the waste from the transfer station to the landfill."

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"At least by Sunday evening you will be able to see a huge difference in relation to Belize City going back to a normal state of operation so that business can open as usual 8 o'clock Monday morning. Of course because of the impact, it's going to take us some time, we're forecasting that this will take us at least 2 weeks to get the city back to where we were the day before the storm."

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