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This evening, we spoke with Deputy Mayor Oscar Arnold about their state of preparedness, should this system become anything of concern for Belize. Here's what he had to say a short while ago:

Oscar Arnold, Deputy Mayor - Belize City
"Preparations when it comes to disaster management has been ongoing throughout the course of the year. CEMO at the city council has had its monthly meetings in coordination with NEMO as well. As you already know NEMO sent an advisory this morning saying that they are monitoring this low pressure system and we also had our monthly CEMO meeting this morning with all partners and all of the co-chairs of the committees to look at it and to make sure that our state of preparedness is at its optimal. Going checklists, going through stuff to make sure that we have for example, the amount of shelters if necessary. Again, this is only precautionary and these things have been taking place way in advance from February of this year we've been meeting and we've been planning. The low pressure system as we've had been advised doesn't show a significant chance of developing, but because we are in and we are a coastal city we must make the preparations in the event the worse happens. CEMO works in conjunction with NEMO. Obviously we take some directions from NEMO as well because they would have to say okay you need to activate your emergency operations center and then everything kicks into place. The shelter inspections took place from February and March of this year. Keys for those areas have already been had, checks have been made on which shelters can hold up, which need repairs, repairs have been done. The evacuation routes have also been tweaked somewhat. We've taken stocks of equipment that is available in the event after the storm, that you have to make sure that you go and clear roads, drains - that sort of thing. A stock has also been taken of available transportation; busses, vehicles for that sort of thing to evacuate people if needs be. So we are very well prepared. Again, this was just a rehearsal to go through. It's a long weekend, people may be leaving the city and God forbids something develops over the weekend, we are being told by the technical people that that's a low probability. We will be receiving some showers and some rains because we are a coastal city. The entire coast is on the Caribbean Sea. We have some flood prone areas, so we always have to be on the ready and on the ball in the event something happens."

Again, the chance of significant development for this broad area of low pressure is low, but NEMO will be monitoring ti closely and will put out regular public advisories.