Belize Hurricane Preparedness Tips

ABOVE: Hurricane Mitch Batters Honduras. Belize is relatively protected by its huge Barrier reef.

The winds of your garden variety Belize hurricane are generally not the source of dangerous damage to modern construction. Blowing debris, tree limbs, and such can be a problem, but they're not life-threatening. The "art deco" rounded-corner architecture of Miami was adopted largely because winds tend to get funneled and intensified in municipal concrete canyons, and vortices that can form on sharp corners can actually pull a building down. But in New Orleans, where I lived for 26 years, hurricanes with winds under 100 knots, sufficient to close the schools and workplaces, were considered a great opportunity to catch up on your sunbathing and take outdoor showers -- hurricane rain is pretty warm except near the eye.

The wind danger from hurricanes is from spinoff tornadoes, which are most common in the northeast and, second, the southwest quadrants in our latitudes. Those are rather like lightning -- hit you, or don't, low probability of the former, but if it happens, you just get very impressed.

Of course, a monster like Mitch, sporting tornado-force winds in the main body of the hurricane, is something to be far away from and not fool with. Personally, when a storm with wind forces much over 100 knots aims its center at me, I start thinking Rocky Mountain vacation and boogie. If one with big strong winds is passing anywhere close, I boogie sooner.

The reason is, as you mention, the water. If you live in the Belize highlands, water damage from a hurricane comes with very heavy rainfall, the gullies along the creekbanks, where people live, filling up and flushing everything away. Humans tending to clear vegetation where they live, mudslides become a very important factor. Neither North Carolina (Dennis, Floyd et als.) nor Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador, and parts of Guatemala (Mitch) are ever going to get their old geography back.

Down here on Ambergris Caye, a couple of cat jumps above sea level, rain's no problem because to make the water rise the clouds have to fill up the ocean. On the Belize mainland, runoff from the hills can put the surf up pretty well in the river flood plains, but once the rivers are out of their banks, they have to spread out very widely and can't come up much more. Wet feet, drinking water, and snake etiquette are your major problems.

The real problem on the Belize coastline or island is waves and storm tides. These have two factors. One is the surface wave action, just the water blown by the storm winds. Waves can bash down anything they don't lift up and carry away. The other is tides, and storm tides have two general causes. One is the cumulative effect of all that wind pushing all that water in a particular direction for a long time. If it pushes it toward land, it has to pile up when it hits the coastal incline along the shore. Up the ramp and over she goes. The other becomes important if the eye is nearby. The low pressure area that defines a hurricane acts somewhat like a straw in operation in a malted milk shake. It elevates the surface of the liquid involved. It makes a local hill of water. When that's being heaved around, of course the tides are higher. Add such solar and lunar effects as may be happening simultaneously, and, if they're generating high tides when your storm is nearby, sea level is up several feet anyway, sometimes in hefty double digits.

Add all this together and our protection by the reef, in fact anyone's protection by any seawall artificial or natural, can be partially overwhelmed. Our reef saves us from utter devastation in big storms and, unlike practically any artificial arrangement, it isn't going to be undercut and washed away. Most of the wave force slams into it and goes straight up in the air. Sixty feet or more sometimes. Quite a sight. But if the tides are high, the tops of the waves come over -- the reef is invisible, submerged, and, wind-driven in the shallow pan of the lagoon, waves give the windward shoreline a considerable pounding. The result is adios to the piers and anything built on them and damage to construction on the beachfront. Mitch never got closer than about 200 miles away, but was such a monster it generated waves that did that much. Hattie, a long time ago, passing virtually over San Pedro, put water over the surface of the island in most places, with waves on top. Still, there were no Hattie deaths in San Pedro, as far as I know. Most of the people rode it out: warning was not that early, and evacuation would have been mostly by sailboat. No, thanks.

On Ambergris Caye, Belize, we're in a position hurricanes tend to miss and bypass. When people ask me whether I worry about hurricanes, I point out I moved to Belize from New Orleans -- old Ground Zero, the Catcher's Mitt. And so, the reef provides adequate and very much appreciated protection most storm seasons. With sparse insurance facilities, people build expensive things here, get away with it, and expect to continue doing so indefinitely, or at least long enough to recover investments.

All together now, boats and hurricanes. The old Ambergris Caye expedient is probably the best. For a moderate blow, take your boat around on the back side and anchor it. For a heavier one, find a good mangrove thicket and ram your boat up in there as far as you can. Then tie it off with long, emphasis LONG, strong lines. The mangrove is going to bend around a lot and break up wind and wave action. But you want your lines long because in case of a high tide, your boat is going to ride up. You do want to tie off to the strong trunks of the mangroves, not the flimsy upper branches, but you don't want the bow of your boat pointing down into the wind and waves, do you? The fellow with the houseboat, a Cajun and therefore experienced waterman immigrant, planned to ride out Mitch just so, if it came closer. People with bigger or deeper-draft boats often scurry for Belize mainland havens, but the mangrove expedient is probably better. With development, though, mangrove is not as plentiful as it used to be. You want to pick your spot before the time comes, and then crank up and move quickly enough to get there first.

Which leads to the most important hurricane thing I can think of: early evacuation. Far too many people tend to wait and see before bugging out, and then all want to go in the final hours. I think it's a plot to drown husbands and brothers. The reason is, if the planes, boats, etc. whereby one can evacuate are all full on the last haul, the women and children are going and the men are going to stay and gargle. Ambergris Caye got caught about 2,000 bug-outs short when planes and boats couldn't do it any more, despite literally heroic work by aviators and boat pilots. Those who stayed were just lucky Mitch didn't come any closer than it did. Since then, preparation programs have been much improved. It may be many years before such a situation presents itself again, or it could happen this year. But I sincerely hope it's been established the women and children are going to get out of here early in the "wait and see" period to make room for the men on the last floats and flights out.

But, then, we rarely have forest fires or earthquakes and other California delights. Our rare tornadoes are waterspouts, which have a curious custom of lifting up and hopping over land -- why, I don't know, but it's quite reliable, I've seen it. So if you come to Belize, afloat or ashore, you're probably taking a step up in overall safety. Besides, in contrast to forest fires and earthquakes, the approach or aftermath of a storm brings world class fishing! Trophies off the dock, if the dock's still there! Those big waterdwelling professionals think that the Belize Barrier Reef is just the ticket!

John Lankford
Belize

             1945 - 2 un-named 
             1950 - 1953 None 
             1954 - Gilda (T) 
             1955 - 1959 none 
             1960 - Abby (TS) 
             1961 - Anna (H), Hattie (H) 
             1962 - 1968 none 
             1969 - Francelia (H) Barely touching the southern tip of Belize 
             1970 - none 
             1971 - Chloe (T), Edith (H), Laura (T) 
             1972 - 1973 None 
             1974 - Fifi (H), Carmen (H) Barely touching the northern Tip of Belize 
             1975 - 1976 None 
             1977 - Freida (T) 
             1978 - Greta (H) 
             1979   None 
             1980 - Hermine (T) 
             1981 - 1992 None 
             1993 - Gert (T) 
             1994 - 1999 None 
             2000 - Keith (H) 
             2001 - Iris (H), Chantal (T) Barely touching the northern tip of Belize 
              
             Hurricanes with direct impact since 1951 
              
             1961 = 2 
             1971 = 1 
             1974 = 1 
             1978 = 1 
             2000 = 1 
             2001 = 1

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