Hattie, Eta and Iota | Looking Back
Sixty years ago on October 27, 1961, shortly after the first Russian Mennonite immigrants from Mexico arrived in Belize, the country's biggest town was battered by Hurricane Hattie, a Category 5 cyclone. Hundreds died both from the hurricane and the unsanitary conditions left behind by the floodwaters. An Amish Mennonite organization in the US sent a group of volunteers to Belize City to assist in rebuilding and to begin a mission outreach. Thus a second branch of the Mennonite faith laid its roots in Belize.
Last year, on November 4, Hurricane Eta landed on Nicaragua as a Category 4 cyclone. Due to Nicaragua's authoritarian government, very little was published on the state-controlled media. But what was never aired by that country's social media could be seen and felt across the rest of Central America with Honduras, Guatemala and Belize being hit equally hard with flooding. However unlike neighboring countries Belize did not record any direct loss of life from the floods (at least not to my knowledge).
Aerial view of the San Ignacio welcome center. In this photo the water has risen to an approximate 8ft above the street.
Photo by Matthew Preston
Source: San Pedro Sun
Army personnel assisted in rescuing victims in western Belize.
Rio on Pools, a popular tourist destination in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. Photo before and during the flood.
Photo by Matthew Preston.
Source: San Pedro Sun
We began feeling the effects of Eta in Belize about 3 days before it arrived in Nicaragua. A steady cool wind blew day and night from the south; the skies were cloudy but with hardly any rain. After the storm landed on the northeast coast of Nicaragua and began traveling northwest towards Guatemala, the rains began in Belize. Day after day of dreary, incessant rain with wind. By the time the weakened storm brushed past Belize several days later it had already wreaked havoc on most of the southern half of the country with once-in-a-lifetime flooding. Mennonites from Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek turned out to assist in providing food and bedding for flood victims. Some Mennonite business men donated mattresses. Other Mennonites helped in cleaning out houses and yards buried in mud.
And then, unfortunately, Hurricane Iota struck Nicaragua just a few miles from where Eta had landed two weeks earlier. Although bigger in diameter than Eta, its impact on Belize was less severe since it traveled in a west-southwest direction. We certainly did receive a lot of rain but not as much as with Eta and hardly any wind. Again the Mennonites pitched in with tractors, food and building materials. This time the Old Colony Mennonites from Shipyard became involved in rescuing cattle that were left stranded by rising floodwaters. Armed with determination and metal-wheeled contraptions reminiscent of the early 20th century, they waded in and worked side by side with other Mennonites and government agents. (See picture at the top of the article and also below).
This year, thank God, our country has been spared a major disaster, except for the disaster in the government office where politicians put on an interesting Tom and Jerry show every single day of the week.
A. Mendoza
