And so while the new conventional wisdom is to take a more measured response to approaching storms, has this also carried over to businesses? During Nadine, businesses fromBelize City up to Corozal where the storm was predicted to make landfall carried on as usual even as the storm was upon us. Fortunately, it was a minor storm and there were no life threatening situations. But what if?
Today, the media pressed the NEMO boss for an answer on what directive would be given to business. Owners and other interests as to keeping their doors open during the storm:
Reporter:
"The last time, though, the NEMO director had no, control of whether or not to close any businesses. What he did say was, something indirectly."
"So this time around, I want to ask whether or not there will be something different? Will there be a closure of business?"
"I wanted to ask whether or not NEMO will have a direct command of closing business until the storm is passed or not."
"And I understand that business needs to be open to make money, and people need to be employed. But one life represents a family, and one family represents a community. And so I just wanted to get that from Nemo on based on that."
Daniel Mendez, Director NEMO
"At this point, it is too early for us to make that determination. We will keep on monitoring with, with the National meteorological Service. And we will be guided by their advice."
"In the last, In the last storm, yes, every storm is different, every storm is unique. We, it happened so fast that we could not make those determinations. But we will be guided by the advice of the MetService, and we would try our best to balance those needs. I do understand there's a need to to keep businesses open, but at the same time, as the reporter had said previously, every life is important."
Reporter:
"But the last time you did not make a command in terms of closing business when a storm was hitting us, in fact, Nemo, made a comment or a statement after the fact. After a storm hits Belize."
Daniel Mendez, Director NEMO
"We at NEMO do not have the overall authority to just simply to just say businesses must close. This is a major decision that needs to be addressed, at the highest levels."
Reporter:
"One, I want to reiterate that clarity, clarity is needed as to when is it serious enough to send employees home? Because it is also the comment from Mr. Mendez, that Nemo did not have the authority to close businesses, then who does? Because in the community I am, local government was ordering people closed or the police were and then it was quite a confusion in several instances. So, when does that happen? And can there be clarity, as has been asked before?"
Daniel Mendez, Director NEMO
"In terms of determining the closure of business, this is a, these are major conversations that need to be had. While I say I don't have the final say, this does not mean that I am not providing advice to the, to to the chairman of Nemo, who is the prime minister."
"Like I said, there was a need to try to find a balance between public safety and the need to keep things going. We did see that happening in, in, Tropical Storm Nadine. We did our best to to make those known, that that the the decision was, was this was a very quick storm."
"And so it was very challenging for us to be able to keep that, to, to provide those that advice."
"We have taken those lessons and we will be, implementing those, so we should be providing better information to the public, for this, system."
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