And as we said earlier – in the Belize District, the worst is yet to come. Chief Meteorology Officer Ramon Frutos offered a thorough overview today starting with the current situation in San Ignacio and then looking downriver to the catchment areas in the Belize District.
Ramon Frutos, Chief Met Officer
“The waters will continue rising because all that water that affected Cayo, the district of Cayo over the weekend and early this week is still coming down. For example in San Ignacio this morning, the water level is still some meters above the wooden bridge. We noticed in San Ignacio it is about 4.49 meters. That is about 14 or 15 feet of water still above that wooden bridge and that water is taking quite a long time to go down. Usually in San Ignacio the Macal River goes down fast but what is happening is the Mopan River is still pushing down water from Guatemala so what we have in San Ignacio is backwater. The water has nowhere to go and Mollejon and Chalillo still spilling water this morning. They are spilling two meters at Chalillo and half a meter to a meter at Mollejon.
So water is still going into the Macal River and it has nowhere to go so it remains right there and San Ignacio level is falling but very very slowly. But the good news is that the Mopan River is receding and that is good news because we notice at the junction at the Roaring Creek Bridge is now passable, the water has gone below the deck and that is good news because that is indicating to us that water levels are receding.
But that’s bad news for us here in the Belize District, especially in the rural communities because what is happening is that the water levels will continue rising and it will affect not only the rural areas but also this part of the city, Belize City and this particular area in the Belama Phase areas because we have the Haulover Creek running right behind us here and water levels
will continue to rise. Out at Ladyville this morning, there at Lord’s Bank, this morning it was almost a foot since last night. So that is indicating that yes water levels are rising on the Belize River and it will continue.
So we should continue to prepare for it, especially our communities in the Belize District. So to make a story short, what we need to do is continue to inform them and prepare for the worst scenario because it will get worse.”
One area of persistent worry for those who work and go to school in Belize City but living in the outlying areas of Ladyville and Sandhill is that when the waters do come down – it could wash across the highway, leaving them stranded in the city. It was a possibility raised by hydrologist Rudolph Williams in our newscast on Friday, and today he gave some more explanation for what we stress is a possibility, but by no means, a certainty.
Rudolph Williams, Hydrologist
“In every flood event, the banks or the buffer between the road and the river keeps eroding and my concern was that at every event I see a tree falling off and that indicates to me that the buffer is now eroding and if this event is as extreme as we are expecting it to be, there is the possibility that this erosive power might overtake the buffer zone and put the road, make it vulnerable. And so it is likely that if the event is large enough, it might come over and it might threaten the road, that was my concern. So if that were to happen, which we hope it doesn’t, then we could probably see it coming around Friday or Saturday.”
