Here's a message from Tony Rath. He flew over today and got these aerial pictures of the area. Lots of Monkey river Seine Bight, and Placencia, Luba Hati, Jaguar Reef, Mariposa, Indian Creek, Nautical, Kitty's, Hamanasi, Rum Point, Roberts Grove, San Antonio, San Jose, Serenity, Silver Creek, Turtle Inn, lots of vegetation and banana pictures.

Incredible work by Mr. Rath, as usual....

Marty

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We did a rough over flight today with a digital video. Was able to pull
off a few images that work as stills. You can find them at http://www.belizenet.com/iris_fnl/


Sorry about the quality of the images (but that is what you get when you
only have connections and no talent ;> )

editorial comment: he's one of the VERY BEST photographers to ever shoot Belize, tho a modest one it appears.

Marty


Some quick notes:


1. The hurricane appeared to cut a very tight path, as at times you
could see completely downed trees, and not 20 yards away, trees with all
their leaves still standing tall.


2. The wind did not seem to cut a continuous swath, but appeared to form
rivers of destruction. This is very obvious in some of the vegetation
photos.


3. The hardest hit areas (which we already know) were Monkey River,
Placencia Village and the Mayan villages along the southern highway.


4. The severe damage appears to begin at Seine Bight and continues
through Monkey River. But some of the major resorts such as Robert's
Grove, Rumpoint and Kitty's appear to have weathered the storm well.


5. If you have other questions about the photos, please contact me at
[email protected] .


We will be heading down early tomorrow morning to Placencia with a load
of supplies from Dangriga. We will head to the villages along the
Southern Highway the following day if we can organize supplies.
Hopefully we will be able to provide images (better quality) and more
first hand reports tomorrow night.


Tony Rath http://Belizenet.com/
Belize by Naturalite





[This message has been edited by Marty (edited 10-10-2001).]

Tony, thanks for the pics and information. Too bad the 2 main website's for Belize can not be linked. Why is this?
Seems to me that both are trying to support and promote Belize.
Keep sending your info please.

Thanks for these great photos! Unbelievable stuff.

Tony,


Thanks for going through the effort to provide the rest of us with a
visual of what happened on the ground. You're our link to reality and we
appreciate it.


Joe Miller

Got some more pictures from Carmelita Bradley of Caye Caulker, who had some relatives fly over Placencia today.

I do not have time to HTML them up into a web page, so download this 658k zip and look at the 12 JPG images...
//AmbergrisCaye.com/placencia/carmspics.zip

Thanks so much for the photos - it's a relief to see how much is at least still standing...

Hey Tony - Lori here.... if was a relief to see something FINALLY.... I can see the roof of my house at least and it's in tact. THANKS SO MUCH!

Truly remarkable photos and an extraordinary job by Tony Rath.

Given the winds and storm surge, tt's amazing how many palm trees are still standing.

--Lan Sluder

Thanks Tony the pictures really help see what the situation really is for the whole area.
Wade

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Hurricane Iris Damage


Kudos to Tony for the photographs.


Seems to be the same effect as Hurricane Andrew in Florida. Around the Hurricane Eye Wall you get these intense gusts, that blast for hundreds of yards and maybe only a 100 yards wide. Anything in that path, gets demolished. Then how many of these were mini-tornadoes in the eyewall perimeter?


Luck of the draw there. I see Wave Dancer got lifted by the storm surge waves, then dropped on the dock after breaking the mooring lines. Wind sheer probably rolled her over, combined with impact on dock and wave action from the storm surge. I notice from the photos, that house trailers near the dock where Wave Dancer was, didn't move. That tells you how finicky those pesky storm high wind gusts can be, within the perimeter of the eye wall.


One thing I have noticed. Is roof design means a lot. Flat sided roofs and two flat sides to the peak, get blown off a lot easier than those gabled roofs. The ones where when you build that peak up from the four corners of the house. Make like a pyramid. Forget the name for it, but much superior roof design for high winds. Pressure keeps the roof on.


Next thing, you notice constantly in hurricane damage, after hurricane damage. The quality of building means a lot in wood. Where you have mortise and tenon joints, lap joints and add iron straps to tie them together. They can withstand hurricanes of Force 4 and even Force 5. But nailed together studs, sills and joists, will not hold in a hurricane gust. The labor saving cheap stuff gets destroyed. Lot more labor doing things the old fashioned way, but those old fashioned joinery construction methods survive hurricanes in wood.


Lot less damage than we were led to believe. Bad, but recoverable and a lot of it is shoddy workmanship on roofs. The ones got hit the worst, were the Indian villages. That seems to be because bush thatch roofs are inherently top heavy. They get hurricane winds and they tear down the whole house. Everybody has shelter from rain though somewhere in their neighborhood. Can't help that I guess. When you are so cash flow poor, you have to build from bush materials. Take a couple of months, but they should be able to get new ones up again soon.


NEMO seems to be right on the ball! I suspect if they do as good and thorough a job as they did in Hurricane Keith and no reason why they will not, with all that fresh experience and expertise, everybody could be secure by Xmas. Caye Caulker sent supplies and volunteers, so will hear from my daughter Wendy when she gets back.


But it is looking far better from those photos, than I feared. Belize will recover from this and with NEMO staying on the ball, just as strong as they were after Keith, this will be just a bad memory by XMAS.

Ray Auxillou

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Marty,
How do I view that zip file of pics on my computer?
Do I need a special program to view them in?

Thank you for the great photos Tony.

Thanks for the pictures.

Could some one please tell me how to view that zip file of pics, please?