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Hon. Omar Figueroa - Cayo North Area Rep
"Yesterday around midday, we got hit by what can only be described as a freak storm. We had an excessive amount of rain fall in a very short period of time. This produced a lot of water and you know when you have water in hilly terrains, these water will eventually find itself to lower grounds. We had a lot of water going through the streets and going through yards and going through houses in San Ignacio and in Bullet Tree and of course creating a lot of damage. Water became held back in a lot of areas so you had these huge pools of water and people of course had to deal with it."

"It did not last for very long, the rain itself lasted for approximately 2 hours and the water took another few hours before it eventually subsided. Today we had the honor of visit from my good friend and my colleague Hon. Edmond Castro, who is the minister with responsibility for NEMO. So, he came here today and we had the opportunity to tour the affected areas in San Ignacio and in Bullet Tree and try to come up with a plan of action and how to deal with it, how to help the folks that were affected and of course this lead to a larger discussion on not only how to react to things but we need to be a little bit more proactive. We are in the process of developing a larger scale plan to deal with drainage and infrastructure in this area because the world we live in today is one of the changing climate. We can only expect to see the frequency and the intensity of these freak storms increase as time goes on so we have to be better prepared."

Earl Trapp - Mayor, San Ignacio/Santa Elena
"It came down suddenly and it was pouring for 2 hours and I can tell you that indeed the water was flowing all over the streets, over the drains and it did affect people from within both municipalities of San Ignacio and Santa Elena. We had some areas like some creeks that were flooded and traffic couldn't pass so people had to move out of their homes in trying to clear out the drains and allow water to flow but because of the large volume of water, I can tell you that nothing could have been until after nature flows and allow the water to clear and then after we brought out some workmen the backhoe and a truck and we began cleaning the debris from the drains."

Area Resident
"It affected us more because of the drainage but we have the mayor looking at it. The water was coming all the way from up the hill, so all that water that washes back down, that's what affects us more especially the area. We have our low land area at the back here as you can see and maybe you saw the post that the water covered all that is our yard and it flooded all other houses that are beyond this line here and water that's coming from the orchard it just met and so that affected us a lot yesterday."

They are trying to re-rout future floodwaters to the river.