Evacuate, Evacuate!

Just when we thought things were back to normal...

I was down at the property taking pictures of the guys working on the septic system when my phone rang. It was Dianna. Her voice sounded just a little excited. She said "there are some people here from the Department of Health and they want to spray for malaria and that we had to get the cats and ourselves out of the house for at least a half hour, and could I come home right away?" - pretty much all in one breath.

Of course, I jumped in the Isuzu and zoomed home. As I jumped from the vehicle, Dianna met me and explained what was going on as two men, one carrying an official-looking clipboard with papers on it, and the other carrying what looked like an Imperial Star Ship Mega-Blaster Death Ray Gun, came up and proceeded to introduce themselves.

Still not sure what was going on, I asked them if they had any identification. I thought that would either bring out the ID cards or cause them to hem and haw and stutter a bit, if they weren't legit. All it did was elicit "Well, not today." from Mr. Clipboard, like, why would anyone carry ID out in the field?

Going with the flow, I asked him what it was they wanted to do. Mr. Clipboard, "Clippy", said they were going house to house to spray for mosquitos as part of a malaria prevention action following the hurricane, and that we would need to keep our cats and us out of the house for about a half hour after the spraying was done.

Realizing these guys were either legit or that I was about to be blasted into the next star cluster, I told them to wait a minute while I went to Tony's meat shop, where we have all our stuff stored, to retrieve the cat carriers. They said "Sure, no problem."

After getting the carriers out of the shop, we completely pissed off Miss Blue and Mr. Midas, by putting them in the carriers and then putting them in the Isuzu. I started the engine and fired up the A/C to give them at least thermal comfort.

Once we cleared the house, The one with the Mega-Blaster fired it up (noisy thing, too) and proceeded to take about 15-20 seconds in the meat shop, the house, and the laundry shed, to completely fog things up. Then they thanked us, shook our hands, and walked on down the driveway to their next victims.

For the whole half hour that we waited along with Edna, who had come to do her Wednesday cleaning and Cody, who came to get some water for his house (He takes 5-gallons of water, several times a week, for drinking water at his house), fog continued to waft out of the closed hurricane shutters all around our house.

At the end of the alloted time, we went in, holding our breath as much as possible, to open all the shutters, and turn on all the fans.

Even at the end of the day, we could still smell some remnants of the spray. So, I hope we're relatively safe now from the malaria-carrying 'squitos.

Now That We Can Relax

Ok, Now that Hurricane Felix (Oh, that's right it was downgraded to a Tropical Storm) is missing Belize, life can begin to get back to normal. Well, as normal as life is going to get when you're still cleaning up from Hurricane Dean. We stil have downed trees in the back yard, a damaged palapa, and no landline telephone.

Here's where we left off, more or less. Bob brought over a few more blocks to get ready, and he and I recovered everything with the green tarp, so, if we got a break in the weather, it was ready to go.

Construction Stuff Ready to Go

Work is progressing on the septic system. Below you can see the last couple of courses as they've been installed. Still a lot of work to get it completed. I'll provide plenty of pictures so you can see what's happening.

The Last Few Courses on the Tank

Looking Inside the Tank

Here they are unloading the 20-foot PVC pipe sections for the drain field. There'll be about 280-feet of pipe in the drain-field. After that, each section must be drilled to make perforated pipe so the septic system drains properly. From the center, there will be an approximately 1-inch drop in 40-feet.

Unloading the Drain Field Pipes

Boring Holes Every 10 Inches or So

Final Efforts to Finish the Parging

Looking Inside At the Parging

Now here's the way to see a hurricane. The picture on the left is the far eastern cloud bank for Hurricane Felix at about the time it was making landfall in Nicaragua. The view to the right I snapped on my way home from the property. I was struck by the strange look to the clouds.

Hurricane Felix - Best Views of it - Far Away

Hurricane Felix - Best Views of it - Far Away

Here's a couple of views of our canal, the first at the bend where it turns to go out to Corozal Bay and the one to the right is the channel actually heading out to the bay. On the left shot you can see where the incoming tide is undercutting the bank at the turn, pointing up that we need to do work on the canal, the whole length - especially once folks start trying to bring in boats.

Our Canal At the Turn

Our Canal And At the Mouth

This is the drain field for our septic system. The tank is right in the middle of it. The drain field extends 40-feet either side of that for 80-feet total length.

The Drain Field 

The Drain Field - All of It

The interior of the tank is almost done. Looks pretty good for something that's just going to hold poop!

Final Smoothing in the Septic Tank

Last Wall to Go

Bob's got the forms on the top, getting ready to pour the top of the thing in the morning. To the right, Bob is mixing up some concrete to parge the floor of the tank.

Finishing Touches

Bob Mixing Mud

Bob cutting wood to build the form for the hatch through the lid of the tank. Can you imagine using mahogany for making forms? It's the new pine.

Bob Cutting Lumber

That Saw Gets A Workout

I've shown Bob's truck before. Here's a few more views of it. You might say that it's somewhat customized. Some of the chains around the frame are there for more than just good looks - they are actually holding the frame together!

An additional safety feature is the fact that only one brake on the whole rig works. Bob says it's not too bad - as long as you remember to keep the speed down.

Built for Work

Bob's Beauteous Beast

The Bed Changes Daily

Only One Brake Works - Out of Four!

Here's Bob's dog, Sadie. She's an absolute sweeheart. She gets excited whenever we come over to his house. For the next few months, while Bob is traveling to Cuba, Honduras, etc., Doug and Twila will be renting his house and caring for Sadie.

Loyal Sadie

I Think We Dodged a Big One

As of 11:00 AM, it looks like Belize all but escapes totally from Hurricane Felix. I feel sorry for the folks in Nicaragua and Honduras, but very happy that it ain't us thats in the cross-hairs this time.

Life is quickly getting back to normal here. The radio is full of messages, asking for the staff of such and such to report to work at 1:00 PM, etc. Even the ATMs worked today.

I am shopping for a large diesel-powered generator in anticipation of the next one. It'll be nice to have the house fully electrified even if BEL has pulled the plug on all their customers. And to be able to do our own ice.

B-B-B-B-Bummer, Dude

At 3:00PM, Hurricane Felix was declared a category four hurricane.

THE CENTER OF HURRICANE FELIX WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 13.6 NORTH, LONGITUDE 72.0 WEST. FELIX IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 20 MPH or 32 KM/HR AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 25 MILES FROM THE CENTER AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 115MILES.

The National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) of Belize is holding a meeting to consider
the threat of hurricane Felix. The meeting is being held in Belmopan at 4:00 PM Sunday afternoon.

I think I can sum up the consensus of the meeting: "Oh Shit! We're in for it now..."

We're in for a real pasting this time around. Before we had the southern side of the storm, which was the gentlest side, and helped lessen any potential storm surge. This time, it's looking like we either get run over by the eye of the storm or at the least, get the northern rotation, which will help generate the surge we missed last time.

Lots of folks are still without power in the villages all around us. Same for telephone service (our landline is still out having gone down a couple of days after Dean. All the phone repair folks for BTL have been recalled and sent to Belize City, so it could be a month or so before we get functioning landlines.

We still have huge piles of debris and lots of phone/power lines down all over town. It's so common, you don't even notice them.

We have pretty much everything we need. I talked to Cody this morning and tomorrow morning he's going to move Tony's boat and Jeep out from under the palapa. We don't expect it to make through this blow. We'll probably park them over by the other boats.

Cody is planning to bring his family up here again. I suspect we're going to get much more rain than we did last time. So, I think his house will definitely be wet this time. I'm going to buy some tarps tomorrow to finish covering stuff in the meat house - where we have all our stuff stored.

There's a ton of trees everywhere leaning crazily, along with power poles that haven't been attended to yet. I'm guessing most of that stuff will be down all over the place. The only saving grace this time is that it's going to strike us in the daytime. That'll be good for taking pictures... But, other than that, I'm not sure it's much of an advantage.

Bob's hoping to get our septic tank pretty well completed tomorrow so that should be ok, even if there's a surge over the property (I'm glad we're not in there yet. We did tell Franz we wanted to go with concrete posts and beams to support the Mennonite house. I think that's a good move.

Dianna took advantage of a lull and went with Connie and Lynn over to Chetumal for shopping. She's not back yet. This is her first excursion alone since we've been here and her first to Mexico. I'm looking forward to hearing about her adventure - and seeing what she bought! It may be a while before we can do much fun shopping for a while. I'm guessing it'll be pretty much subsistence shopping for whatever is available in whatever store is able to open.

The old toast - "May you live in interesting times" - I think we are, I think we are.