All is well here in Cayo and at Caesar's Guest House and Black Rock Lodge.
No high winds just steady medium rainfall. The rivers are all rising
and we are expecting them to come up more. At this point in time they are
not flooding any higher than they normally do every year.
About every 5 years we get "top-gallon" flooding which will even cover large
sections of
the roads in and around Belize City. I spoke to a car rental company in
belize City. They report that some areas of Belize city are flooding
however, where they are, it is not flooding yet.
There have been no deaths reported yet for Belize. We've
had excellent coverage by our local radio stations.
CNN claims that someone died in Salvador due to Keith! Can you believe it?!
There is a death that CNN has reported due to a flooding river in southern
mexico, I haven't been
able to confirm this as yet.
Our phones and electricity have been fine here in Cayo. Most of Belize
City's phones are working however the electricity there has been shut off
since last night 6pm due to the fear of poles going down.
Phones and electricity are down in San Pedro but a lot of
folks there have cellular phones.
This was a weird hurricane as it
gave no
warning at all. One minute it was just a category one hurricane, which is
no big deal, the next moment it was a category four. San Pedro is very
lucky that the eye was north of the town so all the wave, wind, and tidal
surge was comming from the lagoon (due to the anti-clockwise rotation of
hurricanes in this hemisphere). Only now that it has weaken has it moved
south and now battering the front of the island (40-50 mph wind gusts). At
this particular point in time, the hurricane itself looks like its pretty
much over.
If you get a chance, I would like to get in touch with the The Weather
Channel. They need to be told about their horrible mis-information. They
kept telling people about "mudslides" on the "Yucatan Coast" when they
should have known that there are never mudslides in the Yucatan or Belize.
It was very frustrating to hear this. They said that all the water in the
bay of Chetumal drained out and that people were walking across it! First
of all,
the bay is miles wide, secondly it didn't empty (it did go down but not near
empty), third, belize city was nearly totaly destroyed in 69 due to the
situation they falsely spoke of. People here know not to go near the sea or
bays when there's a hurricane. And the pictures they show of downed houses:
those are old houses which would
fall down if someone leaned on them! Most of which are abandoned. It was
hardly Keith's fault.
The international airport will probably be closed for at least another
day and the main roads will be closed to small cars for the next day or two.
All is not over yet...
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that we are alive and well.
Sincerely,
Julian
Black Rock Enterprises
Black Rock Lodge & Caesar's Guest House & BelizeGifts.com http://www.blackrocklodge.com & http://www.belizegifts.com
Tel: 011-501-9-22341 Fax: 011-501-9-23449

www.barbsbelize.com