With hurricane Beryl's landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula about 24 hours away, the Prime Minister made it back into the country today.
He had been attending the swearing in of the new president of Panama.
We met him at the airport to ask him about the tropical storm watch extending form Belize City to Corozal and including his constituency of Orange Walk Central.
He says now is not the time to panic.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I am asking all Belizeans to be calm and most importantly don't be listening to rumors or social media. Listen to what NEMO, whatever advisory that Nemo would give. Certainly, also from the government of Belize or the MET office. Those are the only ones you should listen to, but from all accounts we've gotten rigid updates from where I was from Panama coming in, we are seeing that it seems that God is once again being good to us that we would be spared from the full brunt of a hurricane."
"When I left there was no storm, now that we know about the storm I am coming in earlier, I should have came in yesterday but because of the storm I decided to come early. I don't know how you can criticize me for something that I did not know when I left."
"I've been involved all day everyday, I get constant updates, I've been in touch with the Met office with NEMO office, and as it is right now I have already called for an emergency cabinet meeting for tomorrow so that we can get the latest and then decide what exactly we will be doing or what we expect to do but again it's mostly in the north, and the rest of the country needs to continue working I hear people say should we stop working? No go to work we need to work in this country we don't need to work less we need to work more."
