BELMOPAN: HURRICANE DEAN WRAP-UP

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BELMOPAN 000541

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

WHA/CEN FOR ROIS BEAL

SAN JOSE FOR OFDA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL AEMR PGOV BH
SUBJECT: BELMOPAN: HURRICANE DEAN WRAP-UP



1. SUMMARY: Hurricane Dean provided an opportunity to exercise
our new hurricane plan, revised since we moved from Belize City to
Belmopan. Things generally went very well though there are some
lessons learned that we will work into the upcoming Crisis
Management Exercise. Although the general state of hurricane
awareness in Belize is high, action in response to that awareness
was in this case often left to the last minute. The tourist
industry was generally very responsible in evacuating American
citizens from vulnerable areas. Our new embassy and housing
compound in Belmopan represent a quantum leap in safety and security
over our old digs in Belize City. END SUMMARY.


2. As Hurricane Felix passes Belize and Embassy Belmopan stands
down preparations for the second Category Five hurricane in three
weeks, we offer the following wrap-up and some lessons learned from
Hurricane Dean. We had hoped for a bit more time to use the lessons
from Dean to "tweak" our hurricane plan but we take what comes and
will do a Dean-Felix revision to the plan as soon as we can.

FATALISM, THEN PANIC
--------------


3. Hurricane awareness in most areas of Belize is actually quite
good. Radio, one of the main sources of news, is very responsible
about broadcasting warnings and official bulletins. Most cable TV
operators pirate the Weather Channel as part of the basic package.
In urban areas the grapevine carries news quickly. However, many
people did nothing with the information they had until the last
minute. The hurricane's track did change but for many people making
preparations is an expensive and time-consuming job that is normally
ignored as long as possible. Any number of people were heard saying
that Belize would not be affected, the hurricane would turn further
north, and so on.


4. Although it became apparent by Sunday morning that Dean was
coming a lot closer to Belize than originally thought, the news did
not seem to have much impact on people's weekend plans. It was only
on Monday, with the hurricane seemingly about 36 hours away, that
people went into overdrive getting ready. Although Embassy staff
had reported for work as normal, the speed at which Dean was moving
led us to dismiss non-emergency workers at noon so that they could
make final (or in some cases initial) preparations. Everyone was
advised to go to their pre-arranged shelter point (which in some
cases meant traveling to Belize City to pick up family and bring
them back to Belmopan to stay with relatives or friends). Stores
and gas stations started closing early, leaving many people without
fuel or food.


5. People seeking to leave Belize City found that the two-lane
Western Highway between Belize City and Belmopan quickly became
jammed with traffic. Accidents and breakdowns combined to keep
traffic flow to the west at around 20mph. A major accident could
have closed the only escape route indefinitely at a crucial point.


AMCITS: TOURISTS OUT, RESIDENTS IN
--------------


6. We found that tourists were generally well taken care of and
kept safe. Cruise lines (the main source of tourists to Belize) are
extremely sensitive to weather and avoid hurricane conditions.
Resorts on the barrier reef islands (cayes) where many Americans
vacation understand how vulnerable they are and were responsible
about evacuating their guests, either to associated resorts inland
or to the airport for those who wanted to leave. When it appeared
that there might be stranded passengers American Airlines put on an
extra flight. As far as we know every American who wanted to leave
was able to do so.


7. AMCIT residents when contacted generally said they would stay in
their houses and ride out the storm. For those who live inland that
would generally be a sound choice. For those by the coast it might
not be such a wise decision.


8. We were able to reach wardens, resorts and airlines with little
problem before during and after Dean. The reports from our wardens
and other contacts, combined with local media coverage (see next
para) gave us a good picture of what was happening in various parts
of the country, including those where most Americans live or visit.


"THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE"
--------------


9. Among the institutions to emerge from the hurricane with its
reputation enhanced was independent radio station LOVE FM. The only
station with more or less nationwide coverage as well as a live

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internet broadcast site, LOVE stopped commercial programming well in
advance of the hurricane and acted as a sort of national emergency
broadcast system. Founder Rene Villanueva manned the mike himself
during a marathon call-in session and, in the best tradition of
Belize talk radio, took calls from across the country and around the
world allowing people to phone in live reports from their areas.
Although primarily an English language station, LOVE brought in
interpreters to make sure that all important announcements were
repeated into Spanish. LOVE also broadcast regular weather updates
and made Belize's bilingual Deputy Chief Meteorologist Ramon Futos
into something of a media star. With CNN and most western TV
focusing on tourist areas in Mexico, LOVE was the most reliable
source of information for most people in Belize and around the world
about how the storm was progressing and what was happening. The
station served as a bulletin board for different government agencies
to send messages to each other and for anxious families to ask loved
ones to phone home.


10. Another winner was the local telecom's monopoly, Belize
Telemedia Limited (formerly Belize Telecommunications Limited). One
of those companies people love to hate, BTL was widely expected
(including by us) to fail as soon as the wind got above 40 mph. But
BTL endured, by and large keeping land and cell phone lines up
nationwide throughout the hurricane. In Belmopan we had shut down
our satellite aggregate circuit when we locked our dish into the
position least vulnerable to wind. Our fallback was the virtual
private network which runs on a leased BTL line. Our commercial
lines worked fine throughout the hurricane, allowing us to call in
reports to the Task Force. Personal BTL internal landline and cell
phone and internet connections suffered no outages, although outside
calls to cell phones at times hit overloaded circuits and could not
be completed. Callers from the affected areas of Corozal and Orange
Walk were generally able to get through internally during and after
the storm. Power outages in the north eventually degraded phone
service for several days, but BTL held up during Dean.


11. The police and the Belize Defense Force generally got high
marks from the public (normal for the BDF, uncommon for the police)
for their hurricane response. Police patrolled the streets until
required to move to shelters and the BDF was out in force to support
the police and help clean up (in many cases with British or U.S.
helicopter transport) just after the hurricane. There have been no
reports of looting or civil disturbance in the aftermath of the
hurricane, something that is attributable in part to a large and
visible security force presence.

THE NOT-SO-GREAT
--------------


11. It seems pretty clear that the National Emergency Management
Organization (NEMO) is not ready for prime time. Although NEMO has
made a serious effort to encourage people to prepare for a
hurricane, they have no way to compel people to prepare, and few
permanent staff. While there are some very effective NEMO managers
in various areas, the organization as a whole seems to have an
attitude of: "we sent out a press release in May telling people to
get ready for hurricanes so our job is done." During Dean, NEMO
officials occasionally went on LOVE FM, not to read safety bulletins
or pass on information, but to argue with people who had called in
to complain about limited information coming out of the
organization's HQ in Belmopan. Once the hurricane was over and the
relief/reconstruction phase started, complaints about NEMO's
ineffectiveness (some no doubt exaggerated or politically-motivated)
poured in. The agency replaced its manager in the affected northern
district with the manager from Ambergris Caye, widely seen as an
experienced and effective administrator. In fairness, some of the
things NEMO was blamed for (no electricity, for example) were out of
its control. On the other hand, the organization apparently had no
stockpiles of things like portable generators or basic tools to help
clear trees and start rebuilding. As someone said of a different
group in a different context: "We can count on them for nothing but
excuses."


12. The Mayor of Belize City, Zenaida Moya, seemed at times to be
in full panic mode, not too well briefed and pretty much out of her
depth. She phoned in to LOVE FM several times to complain that she
could not reach NEMO and so could not make a decision to, for
example, fuel busses to evacuate Belize City residents. Her focus
on blaming NEMO and the national government (which is controlled by
a different political party) for Belize City's problems came off as
shrill and excessively politicized.


13. The National Bus Company, supposedly the evacuation carrier of
choice, did not manage to fuel up its busses in advance of Dean.
Owner Tony Novelo -- a crony of the governing party already under
scrutiny for a government guaranteed investment in another bus
company that failed -- complained that NEMO should have forced more
service stations to stay open late Monday so his busses could get

BELMOPAN 00000541 003 OF 004


diesel. Again, what were they doing on Sunday?


14. Politicians and local activists of both parties took the
opportunity to bash opponents in the press and blame them for
failing to respond to the hurricane correctly. There were
complaints that town councils controlled by one party refused to
give relief supplies to supporters of another party. Although the
complaints were probably exaggerated, there is undoubtedly an
element of truth to some of them. There were not a lot of political
figures who emerged from Dean with their reputations enhanced.

DAMAGE
--------------


15. Initial damage assessments did not seem too bad. There was no
loss of life or serious injury. The main economic damage appeared
to be from downed crops, especially the papaya crop in the north
which is largely exported to the U.S. As the days went on the
damage toll mounted, from around US$50 million to around US$100
million. Crop losses remain the largest single component of the
damage assessment.


16. OFDA provided cash and commodities for the relief effort.
Although we received thanks and some good press for our donations,
there was an undercurrent of "is there any more coming?" from the
GOB officials with whom we have been working. We expect to be asked
formally for a larger contribution to reconstruction shortly.

LESSONS LEARNED
--------------


17. The main lesson we learned was that an up-to-date hurricane
plan is essential. Moreover, we benefited from having done a "dry
run" exercise to test some of the components. Our plan was just
revised and we took the occasion of Dean's approach to do what we
thought would be a test run. As Dean turned south and started
tracking closer and closer the drill became real. Fortunately we
took Dean seriously from the start.


18. Internally we discovered that our ways of disseminating
information to all staff need some improvement. In addition,
procedures to provide cash advances to local staff need to be better
managed with Charleston. In a disaster local banks cannot be relied
on so the cash advance is crucial for many local staff. Charge met
with the FSN Association executive committee just after the
hurricane to discuss concerns and ideas for possible solutions. We
will take advantage of the upcoming Crisis Management Exercise to
test some ways to address deficiencies that we have identified.


19. Overall the housing compound is light years ahead of Belize
City in terms of location and structural integrity. We learned in
practice what our earlier "dry run" drill had already told us:
putting up the hurricane shutters for all 17 houses on the compound
is a time-consuming and labor-intensive job. Although the shutters
are definitely strong, they are very heavy and do not always fit
well. Completely placing them takes two full days, time that we may
not always have if there is a fast-moving storm. It is then another
two days to take them down. We have used a mix of Embassy staff and
contract labor to do the job and intend to use mainly day labor if
possible in future.


20. At the NEC we found a number of interesting issues. One of the
more striking is that our satellite dish, which has to be set to a
safe position to withstand serious winds, can only be moved
manually, a job that took three people an hour. If there is wind,
rain or lightening it could be a potentially dangerous job. We will
be requesting an upgrade to the motor-driven model.

PARVUS NUMERO, MAGNUS MERITO
--------------


21. Embassy Belmopan's successful response to Hurricane Dean was
the result of a lot of advance preparation by all agencies, as well
as a lot of hard work by a small group of American and LES
employees. LES staff, particularly in GSO and Facilities
Maintenance, did a great job of preparation despite the need to take
care of their own families and property.


22. The mission hurricane plan was revised earlier in the summer
thanks to the efforts of two exceptional interns under the direction
of the RSO. When the hurricane actually hit we were -- due to
long-term staffing gaps and normal summer transfers -- down to a
hard core of State Americans: two consular officers (one second
tour and one first tour) with no section head, no management
officer, a first-tour GSO as the acting MO, a second-tour IMO, no
IMS, an RSO but no RSO OMS and the Charge. The front office was
staffed by a locally engaged AMCIT. (FYI: She has worked for the
USG in Belize for 22 years, and in accordance with department HR

BELMOPAN 00000541 004 OF 004


policy we have recently been forced to slash her salary and benefits
dramatically as a result of the worldwide conversion to PSA Plus.
END FYI.) DEA, which has had two of its four American positions
unfilled for a year, had one American in country during Dean.


23. Peace Corps, also newly moved to Belmopan, also saw Dean as an
opportunity to test its recently revamped hurricane plan. Peace
Corps management had recently done a test run of its evacuation plan
and, as a result, did an excellent job of contacting and
consolidating volunteers. All rode out the storm in safety.


24. The Military Liaison Office (MLO) stayed in its location
outside of Belize City when the rest of the Embassy moved to
Belmopan. MLO staff had planned to shelter in Belize City but were
asked by the Belize Defense Force commander on short notice to
evacuate to Belmopan. The small MLO staff of three Americans also
brought with them 11 Special Forces trainers who were in Belize on
long-term TDY. They proved to be a welcome addition to the
Embassy's internal defense team.

DIETER