All Clear on Ambergris Caye After Hurricane Lisa Passes Over Belize

Yesterday at 4:20pm, Hurricane Lisa, a Cat 1 with max wind speeds of 85 mph made landfall 10 miles SW of Belize City.  And we, on Ambergris Caye – just about 35 miles to the NNE of Belize City, were prepared – as prepared as we can be.

Here is a local weather station in San Pedro town – while we reached the highest daily rainfall of the year (this says over 13 inches…we definitely didn’t get that much on the north side of the island), we didn’t get the maximum wind gusts of the year.  Winds did gust up to 46mph yesterday afternoon.

And the ocean tide did come in a few feet higher than usual – but we were very lucky.  Power flicked a few times but never went off.  And while there is a bit of beach mess – some downed shrubs – everything is good.  I am very thankful.

Belize City took the brunt of the storm – and you can see more on that from the reporting of LOVEFM.  

This morning Jeff and I did what many people here do – they get in their golf carts and drive around the island to check things out.   Here’s what we saw.

We stopped in the Tres Cocos neighborhood to see this old yellow house that for years sat alone in the water.  Without even a dock connecting it to the shore.

It’s 30 years old or more and…she just wasn’t strong enough.

This is a picture from 2016.  (You can see other pics of the area here in 2014 – and more in 2016)

Yellow House Dock

And today.

Fallen in Dock

Yellow Dock

Dock collapse Hurricane Lisa

I have no doubt that the Mennonites can set that right!

I also noticed a small groin.  No, not THAT kind of groin.

Groin:  Groins are shore perpendicular structures, used to maintain updrift beaches or to restrict longshore sediment transport. By design, these structures are meant to capture sand transported by the longshore current; this depletes the sand supply to the beach area immediately down-drift of the structure.

I think it’s been there for a few years, maybe more.  The beach to the north of it looks great – the beach to the south is…gone.

Groin

I’m reading a fantastic book right now called The Last Resort about how development and beach resorts have affected countries and towns from Tulum to Waikiki to Senegal.  It’s super interesting…

The terms “groin”, “jetty” and “beach nourishment” come up quite a bit.

Old Palapa Bar

Anyway…on to town.

The town council was cleaning up the Boca Del Rio beach road.

Clean up from Lisa

It gave new thatch a very pretty fluffing.  A picture of Caye Casa below.

Caye Casa

And Sandy Toes Beach Bar taking down the plywood.

Phew…all clear.   The International Aiport re-opened at 11am today.  And Ambergris Caye will clean up today and be back to business tomorrow.

Let’s just send our best prayers to Belize City right now.

 

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