Hurricane Beryl: Positive Developments Overnight For Belize but Still a VERY Dangerous Storm

Despite waking up to bad news yesterday morning, as the day progressed, the storm grew stronger but projections for Belize looked more positive as the track scooched northward. This does NOT diminish the fact that Beryl is a very dangerous storm – currently a Category 5 in the Caribbean and strenghtening…IN THE BEGINNING OF JULY!

She is still almost 70 hours away…just less than 3 days away from landfall in our region. Here is the current map from StormCarib.com’s How Close Can It Get tool. (Yesterday, at this time, that 118 miles from storm was projected to be 37 miles – things can change!)

Now projected to the south of Tulum as a Cat One.

DOES THIS MEAN THAT WE ARE IN THE CLEAR? NO! This means we need to monitor the situation very very closely. We will still see effects from this storm! Watch the National Hurricane update for the updates every 6 hours.

The National Hurricane Center updates 4x a day: 5:00 AM EDT, 11:00 AM EDT, 5:00 PM EDT, and 11:00 PM EDT or Belize Time: 3am, 9am, 3pm and 9pm.

Things are looking better (FOR NOW) for Ambergris Caye but here preparations and plans that were made yesterday – to show you how seriously this is taken. First the more official announcements and then what we did.

NEMO (The National Emergency Management Organization of Belize):

Announced a VOLUNTARY evacuation of the island yesterday. This allows residents who have their primaries homes on the mainland to go home. (Many workers on Ambergris Caye have homes and families in other districts)

Maya Island Air: Last flights on or off island announced for mid-day Thursday

Tropic Air Belize:

Water Taxi Services:

Caribbean Sprinter suspends service starting Wednesday (remember these airlines and boats need to secure their equipment – move it out of harms way – and their employees)

San Pedro Belize Express: Please check with them – they have not made an official announcement yet

These are the most important announcements. Some restaurants have closed to allow employees to go home – check first with locations before visiting.

I saw plenty of plywood being delivered yesterday in town and windows being boarded up. Boats were moving to safer areas (like the back side of the island) and some people were stocking up on food/supplies.

Here’s what we are doing

Yesterday, I started to buy supplies in town – from TP and garbage bags to ramen and peanut butter. I ordered pet food from the mainland. Ramen was running a bit low…and one- and five- gallon jugs of water but everything else was fine.

We made plans for the 4 guests that were scheduled to stay at Cayo Frances Farm & Fly until Saturday. One guest will be heading home tomorrow – and we booked a 2-bedroom condo at Grand Caribe Resort for the others. It is LARGE, cement, very well made and they have a huge generator. It’s everything you want in case of a storm.

Jeff was going to come to our house today to put up the metal storm panel – but we have decided to put that off – and, if needed, attach them tomorrow afternoon.

We will still roll the skiff out of the water at the camp – just to be safe. We will probably park our golf carts on higher land. Our yard tends to flood in heavy heavy rain. During Hurricane Earl – the storm surged damaged our cart.

And we will be watching each update for the storm very very closely.

I gained a few grey hairs over the last day or two…

We will DEFINITELY be watching the storm very very closely as should everyone in this region. Thank you all for the messages! You’ve been absolutely lovely.

And to all those “news” services…Belize News Live…stop. Stop with the catastrophic headlines. You are not helping anyone.

Now maybe we can get back to Lobster Fest!

Oh…and I finally looked up the name Beryl. It’s female (though not always). It was most popular in the 1880s to 1920s. It dropped out of the Top 1000 names in the USA in 1957. SO seriously old school.

It’s the name of a family of minerals/gems.