Hurricane Iris leaves 13,000 homeless
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See the article in its original context from October 2001.
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Big Creek, Belize (AP) - The year's most violentAtlantic storm, Hurricane Iris, flattened entire forests, wiped out the country's banana crop and left 13,000 residents homeless.
"Belize has greatly suffered once again," Prime Minister Said Musa said in a radio broadcast Tuesday, a day after Iris pounded this small Central American nation with 140-mph winds.
Iris weakened to a tropical depression after crossing Guatemala late Monday night. By Tuesday, the remains of the storm had drifted into the Pacific Ocean.
In its most deadly act, Iris capsized the MV Wave Dancer, a yacht of divers from the Richmond, Virginia, area that had sought shelter in a small bay.
Officials said at least 15 of the 28 divers and crew members on board had died, while five others remained missing. Eight survived. "We're hoping for (more) survivors, but
Top left, Joseph Parker surveys damage on the shore.
Left, a man who lost his home tries to get some sleep in a shelter.
"I don't know that it's likely," said Patricia Rose, spokeswoman for Peter Hughes Diving in Miami, which provided two 120-foot yachts for the Richmond Dive Club's weeklong trip in Belize.
Iris, which barrelled into southern Belize Monday night, wreaked havoc on the agricultural district of Toledo and the resort district of Stann Creek in southern Belize, uprooting forests, collapsing homes, and destroying 90 to 95 percent of the banana crop, Vaughan Gill, a spokesman for Prime Minister Said Musa, said Tuesday night in a telephone interview.
Several resorts in the area, including the peninsula town of Placencia, also received heavy damage, he said. Government officials estimate preliminary losses at Belizean $500 million ($250 million), Gill said.
There were no immediate reports of other deaths.
caused by the storm, and there were very few injuries, all minor, Gill said.
But at least 13,000 people were left homeless after Iris either ripped the roofs off their houses or wiped out their homes completely. More than 80 villages were affected, but most residents were safe because they had moved into shelters before the storm hit, Gill said.
Belizean rescue officials began shipping in tents to use
as temporary shelters, but weren't able to reach many areas that remained inaccessible on Tuesday, Gill said.
The eye of the hurricane passed through the small coastal towns of Independence and Monkey River Town, ripping down power lines, cutting off telephone service and water, and leaving some villages isolated. A 6pm to 6am curfew was in effect in the devastated areas, Gill said.
George Carpenter walks through the wreckage of his house, destroyed by Hurricane Iris.
Children walk under a tree felled by Hurricane Iris. Photos AP.
The capsized dive boat Wave Dancer.
