OMG! We're Just So Hi-Tech!

Talk about leap-frogging technology. Here we are moving speedily into the future.

We started our adventure here in Belize, when we stayed at Tony and Nellie's house in Ranchito, with little more than a 300 baud modem and a phone line with BTL (Belize Telemedia, Ltd), which we quickly upgraded to DSL while we lived there. At the time, BTL blocked Skype, and all the other calling programs, since they wanted you to do any calling through their system.

After we moved into the Mennonite house, for several years we had HughesNet satellite internet. It was better than a phone line but really susceptible to clouds, rain, and too many subscribers at any one time.

Then, I forget what service we had for a while. It was cheaper, and so-so on speed. Eventually, we went with Mojan. We've been with Mojan for a few years now. His service was good, pretty fast at about 4-Mbps (Mega-bytes per second). We were happy with Mojan.

Then comes BTL again with DigiNet. Fiber optic internet came to town. They've blanketed the town with what seems to be hundreds of these little trucks for the past couple of weeks, putting up fiber cable up all over.

They offered a deal that was hard to pass up. Free Installation, and depending on the package you went with, various other perks like a free mobile plan, free prepaid SIM cards, etc.

So, Dianna and I opted to go with BTL's middle plan - DigiDouble, as they call it. A whopping 10 Mbps. So, we lept boldly into fiberland

BTL DigiNet Service Truck

Roughly two days after I stopped into BTL's office downtown, I got a call that the DigiNet guys were here to do a site survey prior to installation, to make sure it all went smoothly.

They told me I would have to trim some tree branches, no big deal, that happens all the time. So, I thought we were ready for the big day.

Here they came, Monday morning. How un-Belizean of them. We weren't expecting them till Wednesday, at the earliest. All set to start the install. Oh, but wait a minute. There's a great big wasp nest up under the eave of the Mennonite house. That will have to be removed before anything can happen.

Esquivel and Son's

Oh, no! What do I do now? Luckily, Irma, who does property management, had posted on Facebook the day before, that she had called Mr. Esquivel, who, along with his sons, are beekeepers and produce some delicious honey. They also will remove wild hives for people.

I was dealing with a wasp colony. I thought it was worthwhile to give them a call to see if that was something they would do. About a half-hour later, Mr. Esquivel and his sons show up. I pointed out the nest as they began to put on their beekeeping hoods and gloves.

Five minutes later, the wasp nest was history, contained in a plastic trash bag. Mr. Esquivel told me they were pollinators just like the bees they usually dealt with. The wasps were going to be released across town. As long as their queen was ok, the hive would reestablish itself. Very good work on their part. If you need to contact the Esquivels, click on their logo, all their contact information is there.

As the Esquivel's left, I was on the phone calling the DigiNet crew that had been here earlier. Amazingly, about a half-hour later, here they were back and ready to install.

Fiber-Optic Cable Spools

The biggest problem they had was the rain, which came and went every few minutes. Some parts of the installation were impervious to rain, others, it simply wouldn't do to get wet and things halted till the rain blew on through.

Two sets of cables, as we're essentially doing two installations, one in the Mennonite house (at 5Mbps) and one for our house (at 10Mbps).

Mounting Cables to the Pole

So, as soon as they could, they started unreeling cable to run it down the road to connect to a special box (no simple splicing into fiber optics).

Right away, a problem. Not mine, however. Another wasp nest in the telephone pole. Turned out not to interfere with their work so the cable pull went unimpeded.

Keeping Unspooling Kink Free

For the DigiNet crew, pulling the cable was the hard part of the job. Everything after that was fairly technical.

Keeping the cable from kinking is very important. The glass fiber, narrower than a human hair, can break. Still, it's amazingly flexible.

Modem and Cable Storage Box

Here's the two bits that go into the house. The top box is for extra cable, which is simply coiled up and kept in there until needed. The other box is the modem itself. There are actually two big parts to that - the wall mounting plate and the modem itself, which fits onto the plate.

Mounting Cable to Mennonite House

Next comes the actual mounting of the cable to the corner of the house. With the wasps gone that was no problem and went fast. The cable went directly through the porch wall and over to the kitchen wall. The cable for our house was a direct shot from this outside point down to our place. Easy peasy.

Inside the Back Porch

Once through the wall, then it's quickly over to the kitchen wall and on into the kitchen.

Installing Cable Storage Box

Drilling through the kitchen wall, and mounting the extra cable box in the same location.

Installing Wall-Mounted Modem

Inside, quickly installing the modem mounting frame around the hole already drilled for the cable to pass through.

Almost Had to Move the Modem

A good bit of luck as far as positioning the modem. There almost wasn't enough room for the modem antennas. It worked out just right in the end.

Now Comes the Technical Bit

This is where it gets quite technical. The fiber has to basically wind up at this stage in pristine condition. It has to fit into the modem in a precise way. Thankfully, they have a couple of alignment jigs to help. It's still really delicate work in any case.

Tons of Documentation and Photos

Of course, every bit of the installation is documented, by paper, forms on the laptop, photos of every connection, and testing with meters, etc.

Install Beginning at Our House

Once everything is done at the Mennonite house, then it was dodge rain squalls and on to the main house.

Installing Cable Hook Under Eave

The installation there begins with hanging another hook to anchor the cable run from the Mennonite house.

Modem Mount Next to Window

Then, it's simply a matter of drilling through the concrete and duplicating the work already done up at the Mennonite house.

We Have A Connection!

A final check with a meter. One, is there a white light, check; and Two, is there a good reading on the meter, check.

Put it all together, and button it up. Mission accomplished.

You'll notice a circle of light behind his hands. That's actually me holding my high-intensity flashlight so he can see what's going on - my office is normally pretty dim.

The End Result - WOW!

After they departed, I got all our stuff hooked up and finally had a chance to do our own speed test. Like the caption says, 'WOW!'

Belize's First Tsunami and Warning

Dianna and I had already gone to bed. I slept through it. Dianna was awake enough to hear our roll-up doors rattling. She said it sounded like wind blowing against the doors, only there was no wind.

Our dogs, the neighborhood's dogs, and all the dogs as far as we could hear, all went batsh*t barking their heads off.

Dianna and I were looking out the bathroom window to see what the ruckus was all about. We saw Denis and Vivien outside, walking around the driveway. They heard us holler ineffectively to the dogs to quiet down.

Denis called over to us, asking if we had felt the earthquake. He said Vivien felt the couch move, and he saw their lampshade moving erratically. They were all excited as this was their first earthquake. We told them we hadn't felt a thing.

After that Dianna and I went back to bed, being the seasoned earthquaker's that we are, coming from the northwest. Instead of sleeping right away, I got on the intertubes to see if I could find any information on the earthquake, such as intensity, epicenter, etc. Naturally, I couldn't get anywhere to check that out.

About that time, my phone rang. It was Mojan, our Internet Service Provider (ISP), wanting to know if we had felt the earthquake. It was a surprise to us that he called us, but we didn't quiz him on that. Maybe he wanted us to let him know if his tower was still standing or something. Mojan said he thought it was his kids waking up and making a racket, but then he heard all the dogs in his area of Corozal going berserk. He lives in the Sant Rita area up by the Belikin distributor.

Shortly after that, I got a Facebook message from Vivien saying she heard the earthquake was a 7.8 and wanted to know if there was any danger of a tsunami. I guessed from our experiences with the Nisqually earthquake of 2001 in Olympia, Washington, at the time, it was called a 7.8 or 7.9 earthquake. In the years since then, the level apparently was refined down to a 6.8.

With the damages from that earthquake as a guide, we assumed that the earthquake here in Belize was not very close to us. We initially had no indication of direction though and assumed that the quake had been centered in Guatemala or Honduras, as those areas are where most of the earthquake activity around here seems to come from.

When Vivien asked about a tsunami, I assumed then the earthquake had probably occurred out in the Caribbean Sea somewhere. We also have had a fair amount of experience in tsunami preparation and training up in the northwest. I said with a 7.8, that a tsunami was unlikely. Maybe if it had been like around an 8.5 or 9.0 or so. Shows what I know.

With that, Dianna and I went to sleep. It wasn't until the next morning that we found that, yes indeed, there had been a tsunami warning issued. But since we didn't have the radio turned to Love FM, and don't have cable TV, a warning was non-existent.

Earthquake and Tsunami Warning - Image Courtesy USGS

Apparently, around nine PM the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) in Palmer, Alaska, had issued a tsunami alert for all land areas within a 620-mile radius of the earthquake's center. The warning stated that the first tsunami wave could reach Belize by 10:30 PM. 

Belize City sent fire trucks out sounding their sirens to alert the city's population. Apparently, one is supposed to instinctively know to tune in Love FM, which serves as the country's emergency alert station. Not that that would have done us any good up here in Corozal.

The earthquake was believed to have been centered near the Great Swan Island off Honduras. This would put the earthquake about 300 miles from Belize.

Belize coastal waters did recede after the earthquake. In the case of hurricanes and tropical storms, this is not an unusual occurrence. For the waters to recede for no apparent reason, is disconcerting, to say the least.

In Corozal, our caretaker Carlos, told us the following morning when he came to work that local Corozal police had been trying to chase people away from the waterfront and encouraging them to head for high ground. He also said that a line had formed at the One Mall gas station of cars trying to get some gas (most local folks normally only keep a few gallons in their cars at any one time). That was short-lived as One Mall closed shortly after the earthquake. Carlos also said he heard that the Corozal Fire Station had sounded its siren in an attempt to warn people. None of us down this way heard that at all.

Channel 7News said that in Belize City "the streets were desolate and the air was tense." A few minutes before eleven PM, the tsunami warning was terminated and NEMO gave the all clear for residents to return to their homes. We got none of the warning messages or information at the time.

It turns out the tsunami, such as it was, ended up being forecast for 28 centimeters - about eleven inches. Almost laughable, but it just as easily could have turned out to be like Aceh, Thailand in 2004. A tsunami like that would have rolled over our cayes like nothing was there, and would have likely caused severe damage to Belize's mainland coastal communities. The NTWC said that a wave with a maximum height of 1.2 inches was recorded one a sea-level gauge at Carrie Bowe Caye, east of Sittee River in southern Belize.

Around midnight, water was returning slowly back to the shore and everything was soon back to normal.  There was no major tsunami in any of the countries within the threat zone.  In Honduras, water went out 10 to 15 feet from the coast and did not return to regular levels until the following morning. 

So, we lucked out big time. For a first-ever tsunami warning for Belize, the government agencies, NEMO, the National Fire Service, Belize Police, all performed well. the warning was issued, inadequate for sure, but still, the proper responses were made.

One thing that was apparent was the lack of an effective and functional warning system. Not just for tsunami, but for any large emergency or disaster. I suggested via Facebook, the following morning, that the Government of Belize (GOB) and NEMO should embark on instituting a warning system incorporating both of Belize's mobile telephone systems, Smart and Digicell, so that, in the future, when a warning is issued, it automatically goes out over the cell system's to warn the maximum number of people possible. A very brief message of what has occurred, and what to do, should be sent out and probably sent out repeatedly during the event, and an all-clear issued repeatedly for a time at the end of the event.