It was mid-November when Tropical Storm Sara made landfall in Belize, bringing with it several feet of floodwaters. Almost two months later, Crooked Tree Village is still dealing with the aftermath.
When we last took you to the village, boats were needed to get in and out. While the causeway is completely passable now, the village is still waiting for the floodwater to recede completely. Those families that lived near the waterside and needed to evacuate still have not returned home.
And with the tourism season at its height, and Tilapia and Cashew Fest coming up, the village is scrambling to get back to normalcy. Courtney Menzies went back today and has this story.
In late November, Crooked Tree's causeway and several streets inside the village were inundated by floodwater. Being surrounded by their lagoon meant that these waters would take months to fully recede. And while it's not exactly new to them, it's not often that they have to spend the holidays underwater. But according to the chairman, that was the case this Christmas.
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree Village
"Unfortunately there were some villagers who were still in shelters for the Christmas and the New Year's. The water level is receding pretty slowly so for those people, they didn't have a very good Christmas, but most of the villagers, thank God the water receded over the causeway so that is allowed us to traverse to and fro. The streets, remember I told you the first time you guys came here, the island was split into three or four islands? Well all that water went down so people were able to commute from one part of the village to another."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you feel like this flooding event was maybe worse than others you've seen in the past?"
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree Village
"Not really, there were times I think in 2013, 2012, when we had a flood where the water was about six to seven feet over the causeway. This time, we only recorded about three feet at its best over the causeway. And for some reason or the other, it went down pretty fast this time. I remember 2013 when we had that boating accident, that accident occurred while we were using the Coast Guard boat, on the 30th of January, 2013. So as you can see, today it's the 6th of January, and we are on dry ground right now."
Tillett said that despite the flood, there was still Christmas Cheer in Crooked Tree.
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree Village
"This is one time the residents of Crooked Tree cannot complain. We got it in abundance, our area representative stepped to the plate and he lobbied for assistance, we got a lot of food pantry and even with that, we had our friends from the museum, the Crooked Tree Museum who are in the diaspora out there who lobbied for us and launched a GoFundMe where they raised a considerable amount of money to help with the cleaning up and to spread Christmas cheer for our kids and our seniors."
But for tourism stakeholders in the village, they need a late Christmas miracle. It's the high season, but some hotels are still trying waiting for the floodwaters to recede before they take bookings. For Bird's Eye View Lodge, a boat is still needed to get inside, but the owners are preparing the rooms for a mid-January reopening.
Not all hotels have the same hope, however.
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree Village
"That's pretty sad for the hotels because remember these hoteliers have to be paying BTB a considerable amount of taxes and right now their hotels are closed, they're not making any money and it's the high season. In May, when the tourist season closes at the end of may, it's basically walk in tourists so it's a very sad year for the people that run hotels and even with the, now introducing this trade license tax, which will no doubt be something around $2,000 additionally taxes on them, some hoteliers are deciding whether or not they should continue with the tourism business because it's not paying off."
And with the water still several feet above the banks, the village is now facing a new problem.
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree Village
"Everybody knows that the Tilapia Fest usually happens sometime in March and in the background is the Ayinha Park where we usually host the Tilapia Fest but as we speak, you can see over there, there's not even one bench out of water, all the park benches are underwater, the kitchens are underwater, even the stage that we do our performance, we could see a little piece of it so there's a question whether or not we should push back the Tilapia Fest from March, probably April or somewhere there. Just hopefully it doesn't coincide with the Cashew Festival, which is the second week in May."
Tillett estimates that by the end of March, the water level should be back to normal.
The latest forecast from the National Hydrological Service says that flood stage levels are expected to continue to decrease on the Crooked Tree Lagoon.
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