NEMO Issues Flood Warnings for Northern and Western Belize Rivers

It’s been over two weeks since areas in the areas in the northern and western parts of the country and authorities project flood waters will be around for a while longer.  Today the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) issued flood warnings for the Rio Hondo, Macal, Mopan, and Belize Rivers as well as their tributaries. There is also a severe flood warning out for the Rio Hondo River at Blue Creek North and Douglas. National Emergency Coordinator Daniel Menendez says that NEMO is conducting operations with the Belize Defence Force to assist villagers with getting through flood waters.

Daniel Mendez, National Emergency Coordinator, NEMO: “Today’s forecast was just a continued flood warning particularly in the Rio Hondo area where you know we are presently conducting and supporting two ongoing operations. One in the San Antonio area were we are utilizing BDF and several vessels to move people from one side of the river to the next so they can have easy ingress and egress from the village. Secondly in the San Roman area where we have received the support from the BDF to take people across the flooded area so they could be for work or school. So those are the areas that are of immediate concern. We are also monitoring other areas particularly in the north. We are conducting, we’re preparing to conduct operations in the Flowers Bank area where there is also water on the road which has been causing difficulty for people to enter and leave the village. And we’re also monitoring other areas as well. So the flood warnings do remain and we continue to urge people to remain vigilant and to abide by the safety rules whenever they utilize any of the methods that we are utilizing for these villages. It’s still hard to say. So we’re not in a position yet to do any assessments clearly because most of the areas are still being impacted by food water. We are anticipating however that there will be damage to agriculture and we know it is affecting people’s ability to move around freely just because of the fact that they can’t get in or out. We will have to do a damage assessment in the near future we’re just not there yet. We’re just not there yet as we continue to monitor increase in water. So we will do that as soon as we can.”

Mendez went on to say that residents are not in any immediate danger, but NEMO continues to monitor the situation to ensure public safety.

Daniel Mendez, National Emergency Coordinator, NEMO: “In the Orange Walk district no we don’t have an estimated time. Historical flooding in those areas have seen water levels remaining high for several weeks and so we at this point it’s still unknown. We cannot give you a date yet. We will continue to monitor it and support the operations as long as necessary and we will anticipate this to be for a few weeks. At this point the rivers have been rising slowly so we have not seen any immediate danger. You know people are utilizing these resources to cross flooded rivers. So particular in the San Antonio area we have made sure that all boats operating in that area are doing so safely. All passengers and boat crew are required to use life vests any time they’re on the river and we do have police and transport personnel alongside NEMO in the area to ensure that we are doing everything we can to make people safe. So whereas there’s no immediate danger from this, it’s not a flash flood it’s a slow rise flood so there is none right now but we’re doing everything we can to ensure that the safety of the public remains our highest priority.”

According to the National Hydrological Service, the floods are caused by a combination of Tropical Storm Nadine on October 19 and an excessive rainfall event the following week.