And while the rising rivers threaten Cayo, in Belize City it's the sea level and inadequate drainage that causes concern. This morning, with the hours of heavy rain there was dramatic flooding in the city - which took a few hours to run off. By this evening, most streets were back to normal but schools had to be cancelled, and in many cases children had to be sent home after water overtook their classrooms. The Belize City Council was expecting it. Yesterday CITCO and NEMO met to discuss a plan for the heavy rains and Phillip Willoughby briefed us on what the plan for the city is.
Phillip Willoughby, City Councilor
"What we did was a basic overview and assessment of where we were over the last few days of rain and what is the projection going into the remainder of the week and what it is that the city would have to contend with in terms of the extraordinary amount of rains that is coming our way and has affected our city."
"We know that it's a wide area of low pressure. There is a possibility of a cold front and what effects these systems will have on the city over the next few days. So what we outlined and information I requested was for us to identify strategically key and high priority areas that would need the city's attention immediately. So we had the office, our in-house emergency office basically try to communicate with each and every school within city limits, high schools, primary schools and so forth, to see what the conditions is like within the proximity of the school and the immediate vicinity of the school and upon receiving that information we went out and we did an immediate assessment of the affects that system has had in the surrounding areas. We also took into consideration under the area of high priority access of essential services be it the health centers, the medical facilities and so forth and other services that residents of the city needs to receive. So those are areas of priority at this moment. We went out and we look at Northside proper yesterday and we will be doing Southside this afternoon."
Willougby says if you are in a situation where your home is completely flooded, you can contact the Belize City Council or NEMO to get immediate assistance.
Email
Print