As you saw earlier in the weather report, Hurricane Emily slammed the northern coast of the Yucatan last night and into the early morning but she spared Belize completely. Though the outer bands of the storm were expected to have affected San Pedro and Corozal, this morning both communities confirmed that the most they felt were slight rains and moderate winds. Government declared phase two or red one of the hurricane emergency plan in Northern Belize on Saturday at noon and declared the all clear at 6:00 am this morning. During that time no hurricane shelters were ordered to be opened and by 6:00 pm yesterday evening it was clear that Corozal and San Pedro would be spared, making Emily into a real time simulation allowing everyone to test their emergency plans.
Nowhere was that plan more aggressively in effect than San Pedro which has been one of the most storm affected communities in the last 7 years and that experience sent emergency managers into hyper drive, evacuating 9,000 people from the island on Saturday. But as our colleague on San Pedro Ron Sniffin discovered, disaster mobilization for some meant, "surf's up" for others. Our Keith Swift teams up with Ron for this story.
Keith Swift Reporting, [keithkswift@gmail.com]
These 4 foot waves were all of Emily that San Pedro saw yesterday evening. This girl had the beach to herself and these youths had the entire sea to themselves as most residents had fled the island in anticipation of Emily's arrival. One resident who chose to ride out the storm was Milo Paz who spoke to the San Pedro Sun's Ron Sniffin yesterday.
Milo Paz, San Pedro Resident
"Everybody out here watching the waves, trying to see what we might have expected from Emily. Thank God we were ready and better ready than be sorry. I am just enjoying it and trying to get back to work tomorrow."
Ron Sniffin, San Pedro Sun
"What do you think we're going out of this?"
Milo Paz,
"I think this is it, some big waves, some spectacular waves, maybe a little rain, or whatever but its better than having Emily here."
Director of the San Pedro Emergency Committee (SPEC) is James Jan Mohammad. He says residents started evacuations on Saturday morning.
James Jan Mohammad, SPEC Coordinator
"6 am on Saturday we started our evacuations. The boats from Caye Caulker Water Taxi Association, from San Pedro Water Taxi Association, Triple J, and the ones that go to Corozal. They all started very early in the morning and they were constantly shuttling people as fast as they could to the mainland. We had two eradications points, one in Belize City and one in Corozal."
Kainie Manuel, San Pedro Sun
"How many people approximately left?"
James Jan Mohammad,
"We moved 9,000 people from the island. That was under our auspices with controlled count from Maya, Tropic, and the water taxis. But there were certain people that did leave on their own boats and with friend's boats and we didn't have that count. But we did a controlled evacuation of over 9,000 people."
And those San Pedranos fled the island fearing the worse but by this morning
islanders woke up to the worse which was a lot of seaweed……a whole lot of it caused by the massive waves.
James Jan Mohammad,
"In San Pedro we had between, at the height of it all, we probably saw 8 to 12 foot waves outside the reef and 4 to 5 foot waves inside the reef. So those were the highest we achieved."
And the waves brought in seaweed and other dirt which completely sullied the beach but at daybreak residents began the clean up knowing it could have been a whole lot worse. There is suspected beach erosion and some piers and docks received little damage but other than that everything is still in tact. SPEC's director says this weekend with Emily was a good test run for the island's preparedness.
James Jan Mohammad,
"I was very pleased the way that the residents of San Pedro reacted. In an orderly fashion they vacated the island. To fine tune I think it is just that they started to leave on time but what I want to do is to say that if in the future we give this warning again, please do the same. Don't procrastinate and think that because it didn't hit us this time it will not ht us next time."
By the end of today, most of those residents had moved back to San Pedro.