Local News

Officials are keeping a close eye on the progress of Tropical Storm Ernesto.  Reporter Patrick Jones has the story.

PATRICK JONES

Senior News Reporter

Love FM

“The flag flying atop the staff at the Raccoon Street Police Station today signals the impending arrival of TS Ernesto.  Forecasters at the Belize weather Bureau kept a close watch at the progress of the tropical cyclone this morning as enhanced satellite imagery showed a healthy looking storm carrying winds of up to sixty five miles per hour.”

Frank Tench Jr.

Forecaster

Belize Weather Bureau

“The current position and the forecast track for Ernesto would suggest that the storm is most likely to impact the northern coastal areas of Belize, late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.  With further intensification expected for this system, to a hurricane, we could very well be faced with a hurricane impacting the coastline when this storm makes landfall late Tuesday night.”

PATRICK JONES

Senior News Reporter

Love FM

“That leaves a very small window of opportunity for final preparations to be made ahead of the arrival of the tropical storm.  Tench says the entire country could be impacted by the storm.”

Frank Tench Jr.

Forecaster

Belize Weather Bureau

“Current projections would suggest that the storm would quite likely make landfall late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.  That being said and with the time we have remaining or the window of opportunity we have remaining to do any preparations, I would suggest the general public continue to monitor the report from media sources such as your own and if you have not created a hurricane plan in the event of this scenario, you should rush to make those preparations perhaps as early as this evening or no later than tomorrow morning because the window of opportunity will be closing down fast if you wait any longer than early tomorrow morning.”

PATRICK JONES

Senior News Reporter

Love FM

“That is why the Belize City Council this afternoon activated its emergency operations centre and finalized arrangements for the hurricane shelters in the old capital to be ready, if needed to house persons seeking refuge from the approaching tropical storm on Tuesday.”

Darryl Bradley

Mayor

Belize City

“Voluntary evacuation is in place and in effect for all islands.  The swing bridge will be swung at six o’clock this evening and we’re also coordinating other swinging of the bridge for tomorrow.”

PATRICK JONES

Senior News Reporter

Love FM

“Mayor Bradley says months of preparations have put the council and its operation committees in a high state of readiness and to assist residents of the commercial capital to weather tropical storm Ernesto.”

Darryl Bradley

Mayor

Belize City

“We have a CEMO committee and the CEMO committee is chaired by myself.  The councilor with responsibility for is Mr. Willoughby and we have an internal coordinator who is Mr. Usher and what happens is that when we meet, we’ve been meeting on a monthly basis, and those meetings are attended by Councilors and members of various sub-committees.  So we have a committee of the City Council who deals with all aspects of emergency and preparedness and management.  We also have stakeholder participation from entities, for example, persons who deal with handicapped persons – one of the areas we’re looking at is that many of our shelters are not equipped for persons who have disabilities and so those are things that we are trying to address going forward and so our meetings have participation from representatives of those bodies.”

PATRICK JONES

Senior News Reporter

Love FM

“Forecasters expect that the residual effects of the tropical storm will be felt in Belize long after the storm has passed.”

Frank Tench Jr.

Forecaster

Belize Weather Bureau

“I expect this storm, once it makes landfall, whether late Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, the sustained effects of this storm will continue through the greater part of Wednesday and some type of residual rainfall will continue through to Thursday.  However, it looks to me like Thursday we should start to see relative improvement in the weather conditions for most areas.”

PHILLIP WILLOUGHBY

Councilor

City Emergency Management Organisation

“Preparing for the inevitable comes tomorrow before this storm approaches more nearer to Belize.  We wouldn’t want to say that it cannot develop beyond a category one and two and you’re making preparations to go to a shelter.  So if needs be and we don’t have to react with a knee jerk reaction and we would need to evacuate the city we need to be prepared again to look at the worst case scenario in terms of evacuating.  So, at tomorrow’s meeting, then the Mayor as the head, will state which shelters will be opened and we go from there.”

Darryl Bradley

Mayor

Belize City

“I just want to very quickly make this point, the actual opening of the shelter is something that we, it’s not something that we can announce right now because of course, when persons move into shelters – we don’t want to do that too quickly because moving into a shelter requires organisation, it requires people to be there, it requires a certain amount of food, logistics, support and so what we want to do is we want to advise persons to go into the shelter, as Councilor Willoughby had indicated, that window of opportunity so that they could get to the shelter but we also want to do that at the nearest possible moment or the furthest possible moment so there are really in an area where they’re comfortable, which is their homes, until the last point before the hurricane.  So we will take that decision, not today, we will take that decision tomorrow after we are properly advised by NEMO and after we know more of where the storm will hit directly and what are the eventualities with that.”

PATRICK JONES

Senior News Reporter

Love FM

“So until the storm makes landfall, the official advice is to stay tuned to advice from NEMO and the Belize Weather Bureau.”

Frank Tench Jr.

Forecaster

Belize Weather Bureau

“The landfall likely over the northern part of the country, I’m suggesting Corozal and Orange Walk districts as the most likely area for landfall.  That part of the country will probably experience hurricane force winds.  The rest of the country, let’s say for argument sake, the south of Belize will most likely experience tropical storm force winds – those are winds anywhere between 39 to 73 miles per hour.  So it all hinges on how much intensification occurs between now and tomorrow.  If it intensifies to, as your source suggests a category two, then the extent of the tropical storm force winds also increases.  So, it’s a wait and see scenario, then you can take it from there about how wide the range, but the way things stay right now it seems all parts of the country will experience some type of effect from this storm, at least tropical storm force winds and sustained rains within the next 24 – 48 hours.”