Greetings expats community.
Are there natural disasters like flooding, earthquakes, fire or hurricanes in Boquete, Panama?
The answer to that question is yes, we do have some natural disasters previously mentioned so I will talked about it from my experience.
Floodings.
In the 12 years that I have been living in Boquete I can recall two times when the Caldera river flooded. The first time was in 2008 and it was pretty amazing, fortunately nothing major happened, just material damages like a small bridge collapsed. Many fields where flooded but nobody was living there neither had any crops in site. After that massive flood the municipality decided to make the river wider and reinforce each side of the river with a rock wall all the way to the exit of the town. Before that the previous flood was 60 years ago.
The next year in 2009 the river grew again but because it was wider and we were prepared no bridges fell or any people were harmed so it was just a one time thing. This is 2018 and the global warming is at full power so I can not assure you that nothing will ever happen again but you just need to keep your distance with the un protected part of the river and you will be fine.
Earthquakes.
We don’t have earthquakes, but we do have seism and they are more common. They are regular in this part of the world because this is a seismic region all the way from Costa Rica to Colombia. Here in Chiriqui is the place in Panama with more seismic activity, and seism could happen once every two years and it is not like as dangerous as in other places like San Fransisco or Tokio. The avarage seism is from 4 to 6 in the Richter scale so it is not like the earth is going to swallow us.
By law all the buildings in Panama have anti earthquake foundations for your own safety so your house is not going to fall apart by any means😉.
Fires.
Setting fire to the land is regular in this part of the country, specially in the summer because of the agriculture on the region. But it is just for that purpose only and it is super controlled by the land owners and fire departments. In some cases it is an act of vandalism to the land owners but as I mentioned it is very controlled. We have never had a massive fire in the history of Boquete or Panama itself.
Hurrricanes.
Panama is in the Caribbean region but it is off the path of hurricanes, tornados or whatsoever. Because we are close we do get some extra rainy days from the hurricanes affecting islands in the area of Bahamas, Cuba or Puerto Rico. But we have never had any hurricanes in this country.
Besides everything previously mentioned I think it is fair to talk for one minute about the Baru Volcano which is close to Boquete. Last time it erupted America has just been discovered yet so I think we are pretty safe for now.
I hope I haven’t scared you too much but this is a very good and important question so it needed to be detailed and properly answered.
I wish you all the best.
Rommel H. Troetsch.