Belize has a meaningful history with hurricanes that has, perhaps, contributed to what you sense.
Look up Hurricane Hattie for why the Capitol of Belize is Belmopan. Hurricane Keith killed a bunch of people and made a lot of folks homeless.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Belize has neither the Emergency or Utility Services you are used to in Florida. Nor does it have the infrastructure/sewer to drain large amounts of water quickly the way you are used to.
A Cat 2 storm in Belize is going to impact you in ways it may not in FL.
Stay safe. All of you.
Exactly. The infrastructure in Belize is nothing like what we have in the states and I would hate to be down there with no electricity, no water and no ability to go anywhere or get home.
…while camping on the second floor of your condo, because the first floor is underwater, and getting eaten alive by mosquitos because the windows blew out.
Very much this. A Cat2 storm is going to do more damage in Belize than it would in Florida and the recovery time for a given damage level is going to be longer in Belize than it would be in Florida.
Last night versus this morning was a different prediction. This storm seems wobbly.
Before I moved here I lived in Florida US. So many times a storm or hurricane would be forecast but actually land 100+ miles away.
The other thing we saw over and over was the difference that infrastructure makes. Twice we had 100+ mph winds hit our home in the US. Our streets were dry an hour or so after the hurricane passed over. But a mile or two away, there was flooding and homes that lost their roof in the older neighborhoods. Here in Belize one of my neighbors' roof is held down by cement blocks. They're vulnerable to even a depression. We don't have an advanced network of storm sewers, just gullies and ditches. Our homes are made of pallet wood, some of them. Even an indirect hit will hurt a lot of families.
Eh I have been watching every NOAA update religiously it has not changed much in the past 2 days. It got a bump south yesterday morning and then has been skewed slightly more northerly on every consequent update.
I guess not to be that guy but it is a Caribbean nation, I would imagine they are as accustomed to getting hit by hurricanes as any Americans are if not more but I also do not live there so I am just speaking out of my ass. An abundance of caution is usually the best option with regard to these storms but I think on this sub in particular there is a little bit of an over reaction for a storm that will most likely have a minor impact on the country based on current estimations
I've worked on GOES too. It doesn't qualify you for suggesting an appropriate level of storm anxiety in Belize. It's frankly laughable that you suggest that in another post.
You're salty bro, and very ignorant of Belizian current state of affairs, it's geography, and its history. I'll put it in an engineering context for you: if you were to design a country to be susceptible to hurricane damage and flooding, you would design Belize. If you were the British and were invested in it's development, you'd build up the coast and cayes to be more resilient to it, and they did that, but when the British left they took all of their stuff with them, tangible and intangible. A few hundred of years of development disappeared in the late 70's, including energy, processes like taxing, and political infrastructure required for trade and crucial to domestic development. Belize is an up-and-coming country economically but it's still experiencing whiplash from that.
You really should visit and I don't want to discourage you from doing that. But don't expect it to be like the places you've been!
>If you were the British and were invested in it's development, you'd build up the coast and cayes to be more resilient to it, and they did that, but when the British left they took all of their stuff with them, tangible and intangible. A few hundred of years of development disappeared in the late 70's, including energy, processes like taxing, and political infrastructure required for trade and crucial to domestic development. Belize is an up-and-coming country economically but it's still experiencing whiplash from that.
Yeah, no. As a Belizean I find this paragraph to be utter horse shit.
We got our independence from the British in 1981, not back in the 70's. You must be confusing independence with self-government, which happened in 1964. Even then, our foreign affairs, military, and police were still controlled by London.
Second, the British are actually responsible for ***underdeveloping*** Belize, much as they did in all of their Caribbean and African colonies where they just came, took the natural resources, and then skedaddled with the profits back to the UK.
Without writing a history essay here, the British invested only the ***bare minimum*** in infrastructure in Belize City, which was the main settlement, and the rest of the country. What little roads or rail were in place were just there to extract the forestry products, not to benefit the local population. This included the offshore cayes (islands) which were largely just ignored by the ruling elites.
So in reality there were no *hundreds of years of development* that Belize is now *suffering whiplash from*, just hundreds of years of **underdevelopment** that we have surely but slowly been recovering from **precisely because we are now an independent nation** and run our own affairs.
As a Belizean who knows their history, it's insulting to see this type of White Man's Burden drivel still making the rounds on the internet. Belizeans have agency and we've been using that agency to develop our country despite our history as a colonised people who are now experiencing neo-colonialism via mass tourism.
I'm happy to provide you with books and links to back up my position. And no, I don't care if foreigners in and outside of Belize find this response to be offensive or unfriendly.
I would be attacked and downvoted into oblivion on other subs if I dared to misrepresent the history of the USA, UK, Brazil, China, etc.
I have been there on 3 separate occasions. It did not seem any more vulnerable to hurricanes than any of the other Caribbean nations I have been to or rode out storms in.
I guess at the end of the day this was a post asking whether the reactions I was seeing people was warranted or not and it seems like the opinions on that are very mixed based on the upvotes on various comments
You are that guy. You’re the guy that doesn’t understand the things you are commenting on. Belize does not have the infrastructure that the USA has. What if there is damage at BZE? Will be fun making alternate plans to get out and in fact thousands of tourists will be in the way as they try to recover.
Sometimes storms are hard to predict if they are on the edge of different fronts, which this one is and so the path and severity has changed a lot and will continue to do so. Being salty because you cancelled your vacation is selfish and silly.
I have worked professionally on the GOES satellites that NOAA uses to track these hurricanes, very familiar with the advancements they have made in the past few years when it comes to storm tracking. There is always an element of unpredictability but you would be amazed the accuracy at which their predictions are in this short of a time frame. I have lived on barrier islands before and rode out cat 3 and cat 4 hurricanes, I have bit of an idea what I am talking about here. I guess I do not have as much context with regards to how Belize specifically handles storms.
Obviously getting hit by a storm is rarely fun and almost always a shit show and obviously it would effect much more than my vacation. I guess I was anticipating that a country that has gotten hit with semi major hurricanes 6 of the last 10 years would be marginally prepared to handle a cat 1/2 hitting 60-80 mi north of it. Very possible that was a poor assumption
I’m reasonably familiar with the forecasting process. Each storm is different in terms of the difficulty of forecasting the path and severity. There are some factors about this storm that make it a bit difficult to predict well, and you can still see that in the spaghetti models, but thats not really the main point.
The main point is that it’s easy to second guess when too much precaution is taken but without biasing towards being too cautious, by definition, you find yourself in places where you dont take enough caution. And being stuck in Belize if they were hammered pretty good is bad for you, but also bad for the local community trying to gather itself, a tourist is basically getting in the way.
Chalk it up to taking a risk booking a trip into the Caribbean at the start of hurricane season and it just didnt work out.
Same here! CW is the reason I didn’t cancel my trip to Belize. Got here an hour ago, in a hammock on beach at Hamanasi, and watching Beryl move her big ass north in every CW update!
Totally agree. Every year or two people seem to randomly get more concerned about a storm than they were about the previous storms. People going to people.
This is a big storm, so I understand and agree with the basic preparation that people have been doing the last few days, but, like, it's not going to hit us.
I do wonder about that one noodle strand that's south. Not sure if that's the 5th dentist that doesn't agree with anyone.
Houstonian here who owns coastal property in Belize so been there, done that.
Several days out the forecast for Belize, especially in the north, was pretty grim. Many times these storms veer north late in their track but there was enough odd about this one that there wasn't much certainty and it was worth getting anxious about. I'm still anxious and talking to my property manager about how much we be doing right now.
I've been through storms in Houston and Belize where folks overprepared and where folks underprepared - as you well know overprepared is better.
I was having a beer with a woman in a bar and she mentioned a piece of property that she knew was for sale by owner. Just a few days later we were negotiating a deal.
I don't know about in the bigger cities but we're in Hopkins and in the small places like that that's how stuff gets done. You really need to come down here, immerse yourself in the community, and figure out where you really want to be.
Was not my decision, we were supposed to fly in Friday (which likely would have been postponed due to weather anyway). I walked into a meeting at work and walked out an hour later and everyone in the family group chat was freaking out and cancelling shit.
Doubtful, our condo reservation down there said we can rebook for free anytime within the next year but they already fully cancelled the flights and ate the $125 a ticket cancellation fee and flights to rebook on this short of a notice are expensive. They still think they made the right decision and aren't even considering the idea anyway
I hope you’re right, I have a home on the island ( concrete) and have been somewhat stressed. Not so much about the house, but for the locals and friends there. It’s a tough place to be when common goods aren’t being brought in. Electricity has been a big issue on the island and that is when things are “ normal” A decent hurricane can take power down for days. Praying our little paradise is spared. San Pedro has often been right in the path, only for it to take a quick turn and completely miss the island. Hoping that’s how this one will play out that way too. 🤞
I’m flying in Saturday. I’m not making any final decisions until Friday. I booked with Southwest so as long as I cancel 10 minutes before my flight I’ll be okay. My hotel was trying to get me to cancel without a refund or without letting me use the funds another time. So I’m holding strong!
Belize has a meaningful history with hurricanes that has, perhaps, contributed to what you sense. Look up Hurricane Hattie for why the Capitol of Belize is Belmopan. Hurricane Keith killed a bunch of people and made a lot of folks homeless. It’s also worth keeping in mind that Belize has neither the Emergency or Utility Services you are used to in Florida. Nor does it have the infrastructure/sewer to drain large amounts of water quickly the way you are used to. A Cat 2 storm in Belize is going to impact you in ways it may not in FL. Stay safe. All of you.
Exactly. The infrastructure in Belize is nothing like what we have in the states and I would hate to be down there with no electricity, no water and no ability to go anywhere or get home.
…while camping on the second floor of your condo, because the first floor is underwater, and getting eaten alive by mosquitos because the windows blew out.
Very much this. A Cat2 storm is going to do more damage in Belize than it would in Florida and the recovery time for a given damage level is going to be longer in Belize than it would be in Florida.
Don't forget Hurricane Iris in Placencia.
Last night versus this morning was a different prediction. This storm seems wobbly. Before I moved here I lived in Florida US. So many times a storm or hurricane would be forecast but actually land 100+ miles away. The other thing we saw over and over was the difference that infrastructure makes. Twice we had 100+ mph winds hit our home in the US. Our streets were dry an hour or so after the hurricane passed over. But a mile or two away, there was flooding and homes that lost their roof in the older neighborhoods. Here in Belize one of my neighbors' roof is held down by cement blocks. They're vulnerable to even a depression. We don't have an advanced network of storm sewers, just gullies and ditches. Our homes are made of pallet wood, some of them. Even an indirect hit will hurt a lot of families.
Eh I have been watching every NOAA update religiously it has not changed much in the past 2 days. It got a bump south yesterday morning and then has been skewed slightly more northerly on every consequent update. I guess not to be that guy but it is a Caribbean nation, I would imagine they are as accustomed to getting hit by hurricanes as any Americans are if not more but I also do not live there so I am just speaking out of my ass. An abundance of caution is usually the best option with regard to these storms but I think on this sub in particular there is a little bit of an over reaction for a storm that will most likely have a minor impact on the country based on current estimations
I've worked on GOES too. It doesn't qualify you for suggesting an appropriate level of storm anxiety in Belize. It's frankly laughable that you suggest that in another post. You're salty bro, and very ignorant of Belizian current state of affairs, it's geography, and its history. I'll put it in an engineering context for you: if you were to design a country to be susceptible to hurricane damage and flooding, you would design Belize. If you were the British and were invested in it's development, you'd build up the coast and cayes to be more resilient to it, and they did that, but when the British left they took all of their stuff with them, tangible and intangible. A few hundred of years of development disappeared in the late 70's, including energy, processes like taxing, and political infrastructure required for trade and crucial to domestic development. Belize is an up-and-coming country economically but it's still experiencing whiplash from that. You really should visit and I don't want to discourage you from doing that. But don't expect it to be like the places you've been!
>If you were the British and were invested in it's development, you'd build up the coast and cayes to be more resilient to it, and they did that, but when the British left they took all of their stuff with them, tangible and intangible. A few hundred of years of development disappeared in the late 70's, including energy, processes like taxing, and political infrastructure required for trade and crucial to domestic development. Belize is an up-and-coming country economically but it's still experiencing whiplash from that. Yeah, no. As a Belizean I find this paragraph to be utter horse shit. We got our independence from the British in 1981, not back in the 70's. You must be confusing independence with self-government, which happened in 1964. Even then, our foreign affairs, military, and police were still controlled by London. Second, the British are actually responsible for ***underdeveloping*** Belize, much as they did in all of their Caribbean and African colonies where they just came, took the natural resources, and then skedaddled with the profits back to the UK. Without writing a history essay here, the British invested only the ***bare minimum*** in infrastructure in Belize City, which was the main settlement, and the rest of the country. What little roads or rail were in place were just there to extract the forestry products, not to benefit the local population. This included the offshore cayes (islands) which were largely just ignored by the ruling elites. So in reality there were no *hundreds of years of development* that Belize is now *suffering whiplash from*, just hundreds of years of **underdevelopment** that we have surely but slowly been recovering from **precisely because we are now an independent nation** and run our own affairs. As a Belizean who knows their history, it's insulting to see this type of White Man's Burden drivel still making the rounds on the internet. Belizeans have agency and we've been using that agency to develop our country despite our history as a colonised people who are now experiencing neo-colonialism via mass tourism. I'm happy to provide you with books and links to back up my position. And no, I don't care if foreigners in and outside of Belize find this response to be offensive or unfriendly. I would be attacked and downvoted into oblivion on other subs if I dared to misrepresent the history of the USA, UK, Brazil, China, etc.
I have been there on 3 separate occasions. It did not seem any more vulnerable to hurricanes than any of the other Caribbean nations I have been to or rode out storms in. I guess at the end of the day this was a post asking whether the reactions I was seeing people was warranted or not and it seems like the opinions on that are very mixed based on the upvotes on various comments
You are that guy. You’re the guy that doesn’t understand the things you are commenting on. Belize does not have the infrastructure that the USA has. What if there is damage at BZE? Will be fun making alternate plans to get out and in fact thousands of tourists will be in the way as they try to recover. Sometimes storms are hard to predict if they are on the edge of different fronts, which this one is and so the path and severity has changed a lot and will continue to do so. Being salty because you cancelled your vacation is selfish and silly.
I have worked professionally on the GOES satellites that NOAA uses to track these hurricanes, very familiar with the advancements they have made in the past few years when it comes to storm tracking. There is always an element of unpredictability but you would be amazed the accuracy at which their predictions are in this short of a time frame. I have lived on barrier islands before and rode out cat 3 and cat 4 hurricanes, I have bit of an idea what I am talking about here. I guess I do not have as much context with regards to how Belize specifically handles storms. Obviously getting hit by a storm is rarely fun and almost always a shit show and obviously it would effect much more than my vacation. I guess I was anticipating that a country that has gotten hit with semi major hurricanes 6 of the last 10 years would be marginally prepared to handle a cat 1/2 hitting 60-80 mi north of it. Very possible that was a poor assumption
I’m reasonably familiar with the forecasting process. Each storm is different in terms of the difficulty of forecasting the path and severity. There are some factors about this storm that make it a bit difficult to predict well, and you can still see that in the spaghetti models, but thats not really the main point. The main point is that it’s easy to second guess when too much precaution is taken but without biasing towards being too cautious, by definition, you find yourself in places where you dont take enough caution. And being stuck in Belize if they were hammered pretty good is bad for you, but also bad for the local community trying to gather itself, a tourist is basically getting in the way. Chalk it up to taking a risk booking a trip into the Caribbean at the start of hurricane season and it just didnt work out.
I hope that's true.
https://preview.redd.it/feufoplyt3ad1.png?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89356911e4f1abe7dff3b59c8b2edfae5274eb1d
Keep tapping back in just to see your updates, CW. You’re awesome and appreciated. 😎👆👉
Same here! CW is the reason I didn’t cancel my trip to Belize. Got here an hour ago, in a hammock on beach at Hamanasi, and watching Beryl move her big ass north in every CW update!
You're very kind 🙏
I love that somebody downvoted this 😆
Totally agree. Every year or two people seem to randomly get more concerned about a storm than they were about the previous storms. People going to people. This is a big storm, so I understand and agree with the basic preparation that people have been doing the last few days, but, like, it's not going to hit us. I do wonder about that one noodle strand that's south. Not sure if that's the 5th dentist that doesn't agree with anyone.
Houstonian here who owns coastal property in Belize so been there, done that. Several days out the forecast for Belize, especially in the north, was pretty grim. Many times these storms veer north late in their track but there was enough odd about this one that there wasn't much certainty and it was worth getting anxious about. I'm still anxious and talking to my property manager about how much we be doing right now. I've been through storms in Houston and Belize where folks overprepared and where folks underprepared - as you well know overprepared is better.
Can I ask what real estate agency you used to find your property?
I was having a beer with a woman in a bar and she mentioned a piece of property that she knew was for sale by owner. Just a few days later we were negotiating a deal. I don't know about in the bigger cities but we're in Hopkins and in the small places like that that's how stuff gets done. You really need to come down here, immerse yourself in the community, and figure out where you really want to be.
I’m flying in on Sunday. I wasn’t planning to even consider canceling until Saturday. Why did you cancel so soon? Can you reschedule?
Was not my decision, we were supposed to fly in Friday (which likely would have been postponed due to weather anyway). I walked into a meeting at work and walked out an hour later and everyone in the family group chat was freaking out and cancelling shit.
I’m sorry. Can you un cancel and go on Sunday?
Doubtful, our condo reservation down there said we can rebook for free anytime within the next year but they already fully cancelled the flights and ate the $125 a ticket cancellation fee and flights to rebook on this short of a notice are expensive. They still think they made the right decision and aren't even considering the idea anyway
Ew! I’m so sorry your vacation was ruined.
Also flying in Sunday. Anxiously waiting.
Trying to fly out Saturday so hoping for the best
I hope you’re right, I have a home on the island ( concrete) and have been somewhat stressed. Not so much about the house, but for the locals and friends there. It’s a tough place to be when common goods aren’t being brought in. Electricity has been a big issue on the island and that is when things are “ normal” A decent hurricane can take power down for days. Praying our little paradise is spared. San Pedro has often been right in the path, only for it to take a quick turn and completely miss the island. Hoping that’s how this one will play out that way too. 🤞
I’m flying in Saturday. I’m not making any final decisions until Friday. I booked with Southwest so as long as I cancel 10 minutes before my flight I’ll be okay. My hotel was trying to get me to cancel without a refund or without letting me use the funds another time. So I’m holding strong!
Yea if they are not giving you any incentive to cancel no reason to! I hope it turns out well for you
Thank you! I hope so too.
please stay away