Mayor Says We Have to Prepare for Climate Change

The heavy rains that were expected over the weekend didn’t arrive.  Had they come, the streets of the Old Capital may have drained off in very little time. Mayor Bernard Wagner told reporters on Monday that prior to the March municipal elections, the Belize City Council had carried out a robust drainage project across the city. The mayor also encourages residents to clean the drain in front of their homes to keep the water flowing and recede quickly. Even so, he cautioned that climate change will bring floods that we will have to adapt to.

 

Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City

“We did 127 streets out of 730 streets in the city and those 127 streets, we ensure that we had addressed the drainage, that we had addressed the culvert situation, ensuring that culverts form a part of your rehabilitation of streets. We reshaped lot of the earth and drains – the drains that have the concrete bottom – we, I had some MIT members on Central American Boulevard digging out sludge that has been accumulating for years in so many areas, and from streets behind West Landivar. This has been a consistent, ongoing drainage maintenance, drainage rehabilitation. I don’t see the flooding, and flooding will become a part of our life. That’s a reality now. It’s climate change. You see it happening in Florida. You see it happening in New York. You see it happening in Chetumal, right close to us. It will become a part of our lives. We can’t stick our head in the sand and play like it will not happen to us. You have to now look at how you mitigate and how you adapt to this climate change that is upon us. At the city we will continue to do our part and we ask that the residents do their part as well in ensuring that the drains in front of the house get clean. Clean it out, dig it out. I do, my drain in my area every two weeks. It has to become ownership from us and the residents together. We will be able to put in place a sort of mitigating action and adaptation action to really begin to change that trend that is occurring.”