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And coming in a little bit behind the beat, today the Belize City Council, CEMO and other organizations met to tell the press how they will move forward in getting help out to the residents who have been affected by Hurricane Richard. In doing so, they have divided the affected areas into zones so as to effectively reach out with food supplies, sleeping mats and other necessities. Director of the Department of Social Service, Ava Pennil told us more:

Ava Pennil, Director Dept. Social Services
"We have zone the affected area into 8 zones and we have teams that go out and they house to house looking for the damage and they do an assessment of the families. We record all the needs; the questionnaire addresses all the needs. We have done that, we need 48 hours in order to do a reporting back so we've done that on Monday and Tuesday we will report back on Wednesday. We started food distribution on Monday and again we do the food distribution by zones so we will complete all zones definitely by tomorrow."

Mayor Zenaida Moya
"This list that we are working on is directly derive through on the ground feedback from those individuals that have been affected and everyday this list will be shared and will be amended of needs be by the different teams so this will also be in collaboration with the information that we receive from our DANA (Damage Assessments and Needs Analysis) committee which is chair by Mr. Troy Smith so again people will say 'what were they doing on the ground' he and his team was actually there on the ground to make sure that they collate the information to be able to adequately feed into our own system and also human services so that we have a proper databank to be able to distribute these food and sleeping clothing supplies adequately."

Roger Espejo, Councillor
"The department of human services has been out there as of yesterday they have delivered 300 food kits, today they have plans to deliver 600 food kits and tomorrow they have plans to deliver 900 food kits so that's an incremental way of proceeding. Just to share with the public some of the basic items that come along with these food kits. we have flour, sugar, rice, beans, can milk, coffee, soap powder, bleach, baking powder, toilet tissue, pine oil, bath soap, tooth paste and can beef to name a few."

Ava Pennil, Director Dept. Social Services
"This is a basic package for a family of 5 for 1 week and it is given out to those families that are in need that have lost their food source that do not have any food and that have lost their form of income due to the storm. So these packages have been given out to these families and it will be monitored. It is base on a caloric intake that gives you the calorie value for a family of 5 for 1 week."

If you have anything to contribute to this effort or in need of further information you can call 663-2258, 631-2475 or 2270056. The YWCA has been designated as a temporary shelter for those who are in need of shelter. There will also be massive clean up of the affected areas, which will also be completed in zones.