Rain, rain, go away - 10/22/2008

On Tuesday, October 14th I dropped Melina and George off at the airport in Belize City for their trip to the States. On the way home is when the rain started…not just a light rain, torrential downpours. It was slow going driving up the mountain on the unpaved road at dusk. It normally takes about 45-60 minutes to drive but it took me 1.5 hours as I took my time averting mud pits and pot holes in the dark. It was a bit scary and I was very happy to be driving a powerful Land Rover.

This was the beginning of Tropical Depression 16 that hung over Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize) for days with another “tropical wave" to follow in its footsteps. We have been in the rain and clouds for over a week straight.

In the midst of these continuous rains, we began to hear reports of widespread flooding in Belize. Cayo District (the one in which we live) was the hardest hit. Because these rain storms covered a good portion of Central America and Belize, the main rivers including the Mopan River (coming from Guatemala) and the Macal River (coming from the Mountain Pine Ridge) which join to create the Belize River all became flooded. Most of the bridges were completely covered with water moving at up to 30 mph and people were unable to cross to/from Guatemala, Spanish Lookout, Belmopan, and other towns in the district. Some of the staff here on the farm reported their families were stranded in Bullet Tree (that is actually the name of the town!), unable to cross the river, and unable to get provisions. The Belizean military and disaster relief workers of Belize National Emergency Management Organization were there to help and have set up shelters around the country. If you’d like to take a look at some photos or read more on what’s happening, check out these web sites:

http://www.belizean.com/2008/10/major-floods-in-belize.html
http://www.channel5belize.com/
http://www.nemo.org.bz/
http://7newsbelize.com/index.php

For those of you who live in Belize, I have found this website helpful for as “an up to date weather forecast” as you can get around here as well as a report on the flood levels in certain areas. Do you know of any others? If so, please comment below or email me. Thanks!
http://www.hydromet.gov.bz/Forecast_section.htm