We caught up with Minister Hulse at a meeting of the City Emergency Management Organization, CEMO.
He's also the NEMO Minister - and CEMO's coordinator in the city, Councilor Phillip Willoughby told us why he wanted the NEMO to know the full details of disaster planning for the country's largest population center.
Councilor Willoughby explained and we took it from there:..
Phillip Willoughby, Councilor
"This entire presentation was just to show the ministry and the country and Belize City proper that we are ready for a disaster."
Jules Vasquez
"But are we ready councilor? We only have shelter for 6,300 people. The city has 5,300 and 8,000 more are coming in from the islands."
Phillip Willoughby, Councilor
"Yes but there are procedures and there are terms of reference that guide us how to deal with those people or those individuals, so there isn't any problem in terms of evacuating the city. Who would normally show up and go to a shelter would normally do so and who will evacuate will evacuate and we have up to this point heard any complaints from citizenry to make any adjustments."
Jules Vasquez
"We know that the place of most acute human habitation problems was in Port Loyola/Yabra area near the sea. Will any special provision be made in the event that a storm is headed for the city knowing what we know now?"
Phillip Willoughby, Councilor
"Again, based on the post mortems of past systems, it should send an immediate signal. It should be an immediate indicator to the residents within the Port Loyola/Jane Usher area proper, so they should know how to react when they hear about a storm. It's about they having their plans properly in place for a storm or any system."
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Nemo
"Shelters are major concerns. This year we have budgeted some $500,000 plus dollars to do maintenance and upkeep over the long haul. Fortunately we are pretty much on top of it. Hopefully we don't have to use any of them this year and if we don't and can get the program to the place we want then next year we could enhance and enhance. Over the long haul however the goal of my ministry and what I
have said to the director is to try to see how we can develop some better shelters in Belize City that could go beyond category two hurricanes, so we don't have to be evacuating a lot of people. They aim would be to try to keep people in situ as best as we can because the movement and the transfer of people from Belize City to Belmopan and San Ignacio and so could get really difficult. But for the time being we have to do the best we can and the training is there, we had that ongoing, we've been appealing to all the people as you've heard me said twice to make sure that you understand that this is temporary. You're being housed to help to save your life, please respect the place and treat it with dignity and hopefully we can get you back to you home as quick as possible if you home is not destroyed."
Minister Hulse made it clear at the meeting that his major concern is the way the public treats shelters.
It's no secret that these shelters are reduced to a filthy mess by shelterers - and it's also no secret that many of them do not have adequate or any toilet facilities. Hulse asked the public to please exercise their best civic values:..
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Nemo
"Is to prepare our citizens to understand that the first responder is themselves. I have had calls from across the nation for every little flood. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is somebody's yard that was flooded simply because the drain at the end of his street had garbage and he didn't see it his responsibility to move the garbage, he saw it NEMO's responsibility to get the flood out of his yard."
"I am not here to discuss how we've gotten into this culture but to simply say that in all we do the citizens of this nation must recognize that the first responder is themselves. I want to leave this message because I know the media is going to broadcast it. We have been challenge at the centers, my wife who taught at Palloti and for years and Palloti would tell us about the disgusting way the shelters is left after every time it is utilized. You think we have housed pigs. I want to say to people, please man, restore your dignity, we are human beings. Leave recognize there are others in the shelter, behave yourselves. We have evolved almost into some kind of reckless behavior. When we spoke to shelter managers, some of them are frightened at the behavior of guys entering the shelter and they living in a ruckus rowdy manner chasing girls, all sorts of nonsense. I have said and I mean this, we will put you out of the shelter if that is how you intend to behave. We are asking people to try to understand that we are all in this together when there is a disaster."
