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‘ALL CLEAR’
Belmopan, September 4, 2007- The hurricane watch for the country of
Belize has been discontinued, but a tropical storm watch remains in
effect for southern Belize from Independence Village southwards.FOR BELIZE DECLARED At 9:00 am this morning Hurricane Felix was moving westward over eastern Honduras as a Category Three hurricane and weakening. The only threat this system poses to Belize at this time will be in the form of torrential rainfall and possible flooding over the Toledo and southern Stann Creek Districts. NEMO has therefore declared the “all clear” for the country of Belize with effect from mid-day today, except for that area in the south where the tropical storm watch remains in effect. At a meeting of NEMO this morning, chaired by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Said Musa, it was decided that the State of Emergency for the country of Belize be lifted with effect from 12 noon today. Persons who have sought refuge in shelters may now return to their homes; however, shelters will remain open in the southern areas of Belize as the threat of torrential rains and widespread flooding remains possible in the tropical storm watch area. With the declaration of the “all clear”, conditions around the country return to normal. Public Officers are required to report back to work today. All schools should also resume classes, except for Primary Schools, which remain closed until Tuesday, September 11th 2007. Businesses and elements of the private sector who had been on hurricane alert can return to their normal routine. END JAMES
JANMOHAMMED GIVES
SAN PEDRO UPDATE James Janmohammed,
NEMO
Coordinator:
“We conducted a voluntary evacuation this morning. Our San Pedro Emergency Committee met at six this morning and again we met again tonight at six o’clock. We have some figures for you which are voluntary evacuation figures. The people that we moved by sea were 3,229 and by air we moved 1,292; totaling 4,521. We have twelve extra police, BDF and coast guard to assist us in the evacuation phase. The coast guards are monitoring the evacuation and the BDF and the police again will assist tonight in patrolling the streets of San Pedro so we keep it secure for the people who have evacuated. You notice that when 4,658 people evacuate we have a lot of empty homes and we have to make sure that those are protected. For Hurricane Dean we had 9,200 people leave the San Pedro Island, which was during the whole operation of three days. This was the first day of operation and we moved 4,658 people so far. The mood here is a little bit of a relief for the San Pedranos as they see the track of the storm going farther in and challenging the southern parts of Belize rather than the northern but they are not completely relaxed until that storm hits landfall. Quite rightly so it could change overnight as it changed during the day.” Ava Diaz,Love FM: “You will be continuing evacuation tomorrow?” James Janmohammed, NEMO Coordinator: “Yes, we will. We haven’t stopped the voluntary evacuation at all but when we see what is happening to the storm tomorrow we might give another advice but at the moment we are not advising anything else but voluntary evacuation. I’d just like to say thank you to the Belize City transport people and Mr. Michael Godoy who has been supplying bus transportation for my people to go to the various shelters. We are very appreciative of that, thank you very much.” Read More Felix is second monster of the season,
say storm scientists
Hurricane Felix,
cruising towards Central America on Monday, is the
second maximum-category storm of the 2007 season, which has not even
reached its midway point, British and French scientists noted.
Mark Saunders, lead scientist with Tropical Storm Risk (TSR), a consortium gathering Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College London and business interests, said it was "unusual but not unprecedented" to have a storm of such magnitude at this stage in the season. "There was a category five hurricane, Edith, which hit Nicaragua in September 1971, close to where Felix is projected to make landfall," he told AFP by phone from London. "However, this season so far has had two cat (category) five hurricanes and there's only one season on record that has had more than two storms in this category and that was 2005, the Katrina year, when there were four. No other year on record has more than two." In Fort-de-France, on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, Meteo-France expert Jean-Noel Degrace said that so far the hurricane season had been "virtually normal" in terms of numbers. From 1990-2005, there was an average of 12 or 13 hurricanes a year, he said. So far, a week short of the midway point in the season, which runs from the start of June to the end of November, there have been six, said Degrace. <> "However, what constitutes activity is not only the number of storms in a season but also the capability of storms to become intense storms," he said. "The fact that there have already been two intense storms marks out 2007 as an active year," said Degrace, deputy director for the agency's Caribbean-Guiana region. Saunders noted that Felix took only 36 hours to brew from a tropical depression to a Category Five hurricane, packing sustained winds of up to 160 miles per hour. That is surprising, it is rare in the Atlantic for a storm to be intensifying that fast," he said. Three factors combine to make a hurricane, say scientists. These are: a warm sea surface, whose air convection provides the raw energy for a storm; moisture in the air, to form clouds; and the angle, or shear, of the winds, to spin the system into a cyclone. Felix is a potentially catastrophic hurricane and forecasts are still predicting several more storms of hurricane strength this year, at least one or two which will strike the US, said Saunders. Read More NOTICES/LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Canadians wishing to register with the Consulate for possible help after storms are asked to contact Warden Kay Scott with their name, phone number and location. kscott@btl.net or at 671-1938.
THOUGHT
OF THE DAY
I
awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends,
the old and the new. Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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 www.grandcaribe.bz debbiewade@gmail.com
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