Hurricane shelters
Posted: 14/09/2007 - 11:18 AM
Author:
Every time we watch the Marine Parade, we think of urgent public works projects where that money would have been better spent. And come to think about it, before we proceed, there has not been a detailed accounting of how much money was spent here on a project which was originally intended to cost perhaps $4 million dollars. The original project was supposed to create a street/road to take the tourist buses and other transportation from the Tourist Village area at the Fort to the Newtown Barracks area, bypassing congested city traffic.
Lord Michael Ashcroft and the Fort George area representative, who also happens to be the Prime Minister, Right. Hon. Said Musa, decided to blow the original project up into a high-end real estate experiment. Estimates of how much public money was spent on Marine Parade, range from fifteen to twenty five million.
The Marine Parade is an elegant, soothing place to drive, but it is a bone in Belizeans’ throats. There are other things which should have had priority. What about a four-lane highway between Belize City and the Philip Goldson International Airport? What about another bridge for Haulover Creek? For sure, hurricane shelters. For sure, hurricane shelters.
Drainage wise, there is something critically connected with Marine Parade which is troubling us. There was a canal which ran north from the Haulover Creek close to the old BEC chicle warehouse (now Santino’s “Bottom Dollar”), through Holy Redeemer School and emptied into the Caribbean Sea near the old Belize City Hospital and the old Public Works Department. It was and is a narrow canal, but it may have been an extremely important canal. It appears to us that this canal was blocked off by the Marine Parade experiment. We have been watching two things. One is the seemingly constant presence of water in a section of Marine Parade, and the second was the extraordinary flooding of Belize City on Wednesday, August 29, 2007. Yes, Marine Parade concerns us.
Belize City Councilor Phillip Willoughby hit on something huge when he focused on the inadequacy of the hurricane shelters in Belize City. That matter became a political monster when two Category Five hurricanes, Dean and Felix, threatened Belize City, the nation’s largest population center, within a two-week period in late August and early September.
The issue of hurricane shelters in Belize City, and indeed the nation, is an issue which is bigger than party politics. But the ruling PUP has a special problem where Belize City hurricane shelters are concerned, because the PUP committed unconditionally to the new capital, Belmopan, after Hurricane Hattie in 1961. The new capital concept has proven to be a relevant and indeed necessary one. How much more terrifying would hurricanes be for Belizeans if Belmopan did not exist? Along with Belmopan (opened in 1970), however, came a mind set in PUP leadership circles which wanted to de-emphasize Belize City. There were powerful PUP people who kept suggesting that perhaps Belizeans should be looking to move inland from the swampy mangrove coast.
As late as a few years ago, specifically in the case of Mahogany Heights, the PUP diverted a lot of money to a new town inland on the highway to Belmopan. But a greed for money had taken possession of the PUP big wigs, and projects were only as valuable as the amount that could be diverted to personal (and party) bank accounts. If it had been approached in a righteous and nationalistic way, Mahogany Heights could have played a substantial role in the matter of shelter from hurricanes for the Belize City poor. A huge multi-purpose hurricane shelter could have been built at Mahogany Heights. Just a thought from the powerless.
The PUP have not totally accepted the patent reality that Belize City is here to stay, and will grow and grow, regardless to what or to whom. Once they accept that fact, then they can try to solve this serious problem of hurricane shelter inadequacy.
In Cuba, it is said, when there is a hurricane threat Fidel orders mandatory evacuation from the coast. You have to move. This may not be an option in Belize because of the nature of our democracy, as opposed to Cuba’s closed system. Our point here is that there are different solutions to the specific problem. But the problem must be addressed. The nightmare of Hurricane Katrina in one of the large cities of the United States, planet earth’s most powerful nation, gave us an idea of how terrible the effects of a huge hurricane can be when the authorities are not properly prepared.
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