With Wilma rearing her ugly head I was hoping to get a couple evacuation related questions answered. Hopefully one of the island veterans can help a couple of newbies.

1. At what point to they normally call for evacuation? When a "Warning" is assigned? At the "Watch" mark? Other?

2. Where do most people evacuate to? Belize City? Further inland?

3. Other posts here have stated that they stop taking pets on water and air transport once evacuation begins. Even though I'm an animal lover I can certainly understand this policy. At the same time it seems a little callous to abandon a companion of 14 years. Our plan is/was to be proactive and leave well ahead of the 'shutdown' of pets. Just not sure how soon that should/needs to be. Anyone have ideas?

Thanks everyone for the assistance past and present. As expected, everyone is proving themselves wonderful neighbors.

~ MJ

One of the reason that I post questions like these is to get this information out where it can be seen. I figure if I have the questions, others likely will too. I could/can get many answers from calling people direct, but that wouldn't get the information where others can see it. Besides, I enjoy this forum.

With that said I have done some due-dilligence of my own reguarding the above. According to the Water Taxi service, pets can ride up to the point of the officials calling for "Evacuation". Not any real 'new' news there. They also said that they prefer pets crated unless they are under control and not causing problems. Finally, the quietes departer times from SP to Belize City were listed as the 8am or 9:30am trips.

I'm sure it's also posted elsewhere, but here is the link to the water taxi:

http://www.cayecaulkerwatertaxi.com/

Still questions to be answered in the original post, but it's a start.

~ MJ

If you do not have to go to work it is better for you to leave sooner than later. When the evacuation call is made you are talking about 9,000 people on the move, small babies, old folks - it is hectic and there is no way you should have a pet in THAT mix.

You really need to have a plan now. Belize City is not a sensible place to evacuate to. It is at sea level. Going inland is popular choice, again if you don't plan way ahead there won't be any available hotel rooms. Also, not all hotels will accept pets.

Going over the border to Mexico is an option.

I would say that if you don't have any major ties that mean you must stay on the island you should even consider flying to the States.

Personally I wouldn't want to evacuate to the mainland or Mexico because I know that the roads get flooded, the bridges become impassable and with many, many folks being displaced stores can run out of supplies very quickly.

We need to remember that the majority of the folks around here live hand to mouth. If you buy all of the available food stores in emergency times somebody is going without. These folks cannot afford to evacuate very far away either.

If you don't have a safe place to stay on the island you should leave.

If you don't leave you should always have your hurricane supply prepared during the whole season. Food, medicines, dog food, water, fuel, batteries, clorox etc etc. Don't become somebody else's burden.

We left the island on Monday, came back yesterday. We had decided before we came here that we would be very conservative, and so we were. Very glad we left, and very glad it was unnecessary.

We stayed at the Belmopan Bed and Breakfast, which we would recommend. I'll do a separate post about it.

That was a good call. As it happens we had minimal beach erosion, road erosion and a few piers went down. Maximum gust we recorded was 62 mph. But, it could have been much, much worse!!