We missed the flood, but...

While were vacationing in Guatemala, it was pouring rain at home in Belize.  Before we left on October 19, we had been getting at least some rain almost every day, so the ground was pretty well saturated.  Mid-week after we left, it started to rain in earnest as a large area of moisture got stuck over Belize, and Belize got about 15 inches of rain over the next four or five days.  We were keeping in touch with people at home between the farm and the B&B, so we knew what was happening.  We knew roads were closed, we knew bridges were covered or washed out, ferries weren't running, and generally it was very, very wet.  However, where we were, we were getting some rain at night, but most days were actually pretty nice...just about the way Belize was when we left.  So, we had a hard time imagining the destruction.

When we got home, the first thing we saw was that the road in front of the house was washed out.  It is passable by vehicles and small trucks, but we could see where the sides had washed out, and Dave had stuck flags into the ground to mark the new edge of the road.  The solid part is pretty narrow, and while Tom watched a large truck cross, he said it was pretty scary.  The first order of business this week has been to work on getting this bridge fixed.

We talked to Tulio, and he suggested that we take a ride around the property to view the damage.  We didn't realize it, but Tulio has a definite flair for the dramatic.  We started at a washed out dirt and stick bridge, which had sustained some damage and wasn't passable, but didn't look too bad.  We then looked at an unbridged stream crossing where the water had been high enough to completely clear the brush from the sides of the stream, so for the first time we could see what the stream actually looks like where the road picks up and leaves off on either side.  We then drove to the first bridge that looks significantly diffferent pre- and post-flood.

Here's what this crossing looked like before the flood:

Here's what it looks like now:

The entire approach washed away as the river rerouted itself.  We jumped back into the truck, with Tulio driving, and expected to reverse back up the hill to turn around.  Tom and I were both a little surprised when Tulio put it in first gear and drove off the edge of the bridge and into the river, through the water and over the rocks and up the bank on the other side.  The Land Rover did it without difficulty, but it was definitely a dramatic moment.

We then went to another concrete bridge which crosses the same creek further downstream.  I couldn't find a "before" picture of this one, but it had the same kind of washout issues as the one pictured above.

Sticks and rocks jammed under the bridge, which then served as a dam, forcing the river to wash out the far side of the bridge, and to widen the river below the bridge.  What was a small sand pit is now a fairly large sand pit, although it is no longer accessible from the other side of the stream.  We did not try to drive across this part of the river.

The coup-de-grace of the tour was the charming palapa and dock at Orchid Falls, which had been almost completely submerged.  Tom and I rode the horses there for our anniversary in August, and took this picture:

In the flood, the water completely flowed through the palapa, knocking down part of the wall, ripping out the screens, and taking the screen doors off their hinges.

Part of the roof was unsupported, but it was easy enough to put up another support, which will hold until repairs can be made so long as we don't have another flood in the near future.

The water was so high in the changing room that this bench, which had been on the floor, was lodged about 5 1/2 feet up the wall.

Fortunately for everybody at the farm, the damage was isolated to spots on the waterways.  We had some water running into the ground level cabin, but with effort, it was swept out and no major harm was done.  The bridges need to be fixed prior to fire season so the fire fighting crews can get to the property on both sides of the waterways, but most of the fixes involve only filling the washed out areas, and hoping that we don't have any more big floods in the near future.  The crew is actually looking forward to sparring with Mother Nature, and running the backhoe and the bulldozer, but everybody recognizes that in the end, she will always have the last say.