| | Hurricane Iris -- 2001
Iris seemed trivial to us here in Corozal, but to the
people of Placentia, it was terrible -- like the end of the world. Here
is Mary Toy's account of the clean-up after Iris wiped out 95% of the village.
Start at the bottom -- the entries are in reverse chronological order. New.
Here is a letter I just got from her.
Iris - "ee' doan" -- by Rick Zahniser
Being a little diary of Hurricane Iris, Belize' Category 4 Hurricane of 2001.
Sunday: Oct 7, 2001.
This morning, the Belize Weather Service mentions Hurricane Iris, near Jamaica, and I go take a look at the satellite picture. (http://www.weather.com/maps/maptype/satelliteworld/centralamericasatellite_large.html) Iris is a little dot out in the Caribbean, so small (maybe 30 miles across) that I dismiss it as a fraud. By 10 o'clock, our local channel 17 has switched from CNN (carrying constant war news since Sep11) to the Weather Channel, and they're already talking about Iris. Periodically, throughout the day, I look (every 4 hours or so) and it's getting bigger. By 5PM it's 75 miles across, and the winds are 75 knots. It's about 250 miles due east of us, moving more or less due west, because of a trough to the north of us which is holding it on course. The warm waters of the Caribbean are feeding it, and it has the potential to become a really big storm.
Tropical storm Jerry is south east of Iris about 250 miles, and looks like it
will follow Iris into the Carrib. We start talking about things we might want to do to get ready. Charlotte wants to put a plug in the shower drain so that the water won't come in and stain up our brand new tiles. (Chantal made a such a mess that it took her two days to scrub up.)
Since the last storm, we put in a permanent hose from the back yard to the Charro (storm drain) across the road, so it will be easier to hook up our pump and pump out the lot when it floods.
Monday, Oct 8
Iris has stopped moving, and is picking up size alarmingly. Now over 100 miles across, she has winds of 100mph. A "counter-cyclone" (high) to the north of her is holding her in place, the warm Caribbean seas are feeding her, and she's scheduled to hit land early tomorrow morning.
Here in Corozal it's very quiet, cloudy (gloomy?) I will go downtown and shop for things to sustain us - a potato to make a plug for the shower --bread, beans, rice, peppers (spaghetti without peppers - Horrors!!) onions, canned milk. We ate our way through Keith, and I mean to be prepared – although we don't have house guests at this point like we did then.
10:30: Everyone is buying hurricane supplies. There are dozens of people in every store; Rayes has four cash registers (instead of two) going. I go down to Mo's, out on the edge of downtown, and get everything I need. I try to lay in some emergency booze, but the stores won't sell any rum as long as there's an emergency. A shopkeeper explains that they're not worried about people like me who drink at home, but people who drink, go crazy, and turn into looters. People who never put up plywood before are coming home with truckloads and hooking it up behind their burglar bars. (The bars, which make storm shutters impossible, do make a natural bracket for the plywood)
12:30: The town is settling down. Shops, normally bustling on Monday, are closed for the duration. School children, loose because the schools canceled, are now home.
1PM Weather Channel and station LOVE-FM, the best radio station in Bleece (Belize City) says that Iris is coming ashore on the south coast. Bleece is not particularly threatened, but they are evacuating Dangriga (about 50 miles down the coast from
Bleece.) Iris has become a category 4 hurricane with 140mph winds around a
small (20 mile) center.
2PM: It starts to blow (maybe 40 mph) and rain here. It rains really hard for 20 minutes. That's it!
8PM: It's quiet; rained softly a few times, for ten minutes at a crack. I hooked up my pump this afternoon so I'm prepared to pump out the lot. Drat! All dressed up and no place to go! I go to bed, exhausted from the excitement. <hee, hee> Charlotte is reading a new book, and watching a muted Weather Channel, where, occasionally, they show a muted Iris..
9PM: The really heavy rain, driven by 40 mph winds, hits and wakes me up. Charlotte closes all the windows, puts towels in a couple of sills to catch some drips, and comes to bed. We go to sleep to the serenade of howling winds and rain on a tin roof.
11:30 PM: I get up and take a look at the Weather Channel. Iris is over in Guatemala, down to 85mph, but cutting a swath through the heavily populated jungle there. Jerry is falling apart, due to stratospheric wind shear, and has been downgraded to a Tropical Recession. Here in Corozal, it rains a little short heavy rain and quits. I can see isolated lakes of water in the lawn, but there's no real flood. Back to bed.
Tuesday, Oct 9
6AM: The lawn looks wet but unflooded. (When the rain is spaced out, as it was here, the sandy soil has time to swallow it up) The sky is overcast, some distant muted thunder. We listen for news of Dangriga, Placentia and Punta Gorda on LOVE-FM. (In any emergency, you can sent a message to lovefm@btl.net and ask your friend or loved one to call you. It's like ol' time radio.)
7:30 I go over to get eggs from Mike Gallego's "Corner Shop". As I'm standing there, it starts to rain again, and rains about an inch or so in 30 minutes. ("torrential rains" - normal here.) I come back, look at the flood, and turn on the pump. It pumps out the water in about a half hour. I cook breakfast and we contemplate the day ahead.
IRIS Analysis.
Iris, accelerated by the warm Caribbean waters, held down by a high to the north, came ashore at a place called Monkey River Town, south of Placentia, north of Punta Gorda. 140mph winds, but over a very small area - perhaps only 20 miles. Like Keith, it came ashore in a relatively unpopulated area, and did much less damage than it might have done. It tore across Belize and into the highlands of Guatemala, where it slowed down considerably. Bleece got no serious winds or rain. Placentia lost almost all of its businesses, but many of these were modular homes, towed into place and converted to offices and tourist cabins. (Mr. Ed says "I used to wonder where all the trailers in Belize were, and then I went to Placentia.") If you own a place in Placentia, you better come see if it's still here. (Probably not.) Punta Gorda had some damage, but mostly to jungle shacks. (Palmetto & Thatch.) Mike
says "Like the big bad wolf - Whoosh!"
The land promoters around Placentia had been touting that area as a "hurricane free zone" since the hurricanes for the last couple of years have been hitting us up north. I guess they'll have to change their tune a little. For now, there's a storm brewing off the coast of Africa, and they usually head this way. As for Iris: "ee doan" (Creole for "It's done." )
Sr. ric
Post Script. Again, you should
read Mary Toy's
description if you haven't already. Hurricanes always seem trivial
from a distance and I apologize if I seemed to be detached.
Copyright, Sr_ric, 2002, All Rights Reserved.
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