Since Tropical Storm Sara and the heavy rains that accompanied it -we've been covering the floods in the West and the Belize River Valley.
NEMO has the primary response mechanism, but the tireless work of the Red Cross is also a big part of the relief effort.
The Red Crescent Director General told us today that when they first received a request to assist, they immediately activated their San Ignacio branch, and since then they've provided relief in the most affected communities, namely Arenal, Bullet Tree and Calla Creek.
She told us what that relief looked like for them.
Lily Bowman, Director General, Belize Red Cross Society
"So what we did we got our team together and we reported to NEMOS office and they integrated our volunteers into their teams so we have been going out for the last few days with NEMO in the Cayo area to assist with assessments and to help them with their distribution of relief we have been in the meantime monitoring the situation in the Belize River Valley because from our experiences we know that Belize river Valley is the next area that will be flooded the water will sit a lot much longer in that area so we were preparing to provide assistance any which way we can according to their needs so we have liaised with NEMO the district office for that area and now tomorrow we will start going out into communities like the Rancho Dolores community, Lemonal, Flowers Bank and crooked Tree to conduct proper assessments and to distribute non food items."
"We are exercising our auxiliary role yes assisting, in a larger event I am sure you'll be seeing the Belize Red Cross more prominently out there in the past because then we would be really needed to take over certain areas to conduct our assessments our distributions and our support."
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