MIDH Mobilizes Road Repairs Nationwide After Storm Sara Damage

The Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing (MIDH) was forced to activate several teams country-wide this weekend to conduct road repairs. Tropical Storm Sara’s rains damaged several thoroughfares and bridges like the Hawksworth Bridge in Cayo. Fortunately, the ministry was able to mobilize quickly to patch potholes and clean affected roads and drains. Earlier today, Chief Engineer Evondale Moody spoke about the areas affected this weekend and how the ministry anticipated the storm’s impacts. 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, Ministry of Infrastructure Development: “Our team were mobilized before the storm and we were also there during the storm as well. And so we had most of the works to be done within the Cayo district we had some works within the Stann Creek and Belize District as well but most of the effects were felt in the Cayo district with the flooding in the Mopan and the Macal Rivers. Initially we had issues with some sections of the Hummingbird Highway whereby we had some slippage at mile 29 on the Hummingbird Highway which we had to mobilize the team immediately to do. However that was easy for us because we had preliminary meetings before the storm arrived whereby we mobilized our equipment to Middlesex and also to St.Margaret’s and so we didn’t have to travel that far to get to the site of the slippage. Then we had mobilized teams in the Cayo district whereby we had issues with respect to Bullet Tree Road, also the Salvador Fernandez Bridge we had to close Saturday night because of the fast rising of the Mopan River. We had some issues on the George Price Highway in terms of minor slippage as well which we had to address yesterday and so we were more than likely readily prepared to activate everyone that was on standby to work during this storm.”

Reporter: What are we looking at in terms of finances or sort of damage did it cause in terms of finance ? 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, Ministry of Infrastructure Development: “To be honest we would still need some more time to do that assessment because we’re not sure to what extent like the Salvador Fernandez Bridge has been impacted because the water there is still rising. We have decided to close as well the Succotz Village area the George Price Highway within Succotz Village because the Mopan River is rising over that section but that is a section that we have under construction for the construction of a flood way and so that should work well in our favor because its already under construction. In terms of other assessment we would still have to wait until we get through this week to determine an exact value of where we are in terms of financial assets that has been damaged.”

One of the major concerns raised this weekend had to do with the potholes that sprang up on the newly inaugurated Hawksworth Bridge. Residents questioned whether the bridge was not properly built to withstand the heavy rains. However, Moody explained that the ministry had only done temporary work on the bridge before it was opened. 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, Ministry of Infrastructure Development: “As you may recall that we opened that bridge on Wednesday last week on so on the previous Monday what the ministry did was to do an overlay of premix on the approach because we wanted to have both bridge structures opened for the Cayo district since we knew that this storm was coming. However because of the intense rainfall that premix that we placed was not cured properly and that developed some pothole on the approach and bear in mind it’s just the approach of the bridge it’s not the bridge itself and so in expediency we tried to mobilize our team to concrete that section even though we were going through the storm because we did not want to hear that clatter of negative comments that we were hearing in respect to the works that were significantly done on the main bridge structure which we believed the public should appreciate the works that we’d done for the bridge rather than just clamoring over two potholes. So in an effort to eliminate that we mobilized a team to go in an concrete that section which is what we wanted to do before but because we were trying to prepare for the hurricane and in an effort to have both bridges open for the public we said lets go ahead and use the flexible pavement which did not help so much and so we went in and corrected that immediately.”

The ministry was also called to clean a portion of the road near mile 29 on the Hummingbird Highway that was affected by a landslide.