MIDH Assessing Flood Damages on the Country’s Road System

The Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing has also been conducting an assessment of the country’s road infrastructure after the flood. Chief Engineer at the ministry, Lennox Bradley, explained that the ministry has dealt with more severe flooding compared to what was experienced this past weekend. 

Lennox Bradley, Chief Engineer, Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing: “We had been doing some work well in advance of the passage of Hurricane Julia. I have to inform the public that we have been putting a lot of emphasis on trying to clear inland waterways, installing culverts, the main purpose being to try to build resilience in our road infrastructure as well as in communities that use the road infrastructure. So we had been placing a lot of emphasis on drainage. So with the advent and passage of Hurricane Julia we noticed that areas that were subject to flooding the water receded quite quickly although we still have areas where the areas are still under flood waters in the Cayo district. We did an assessment as I indicated immediately after the passage of Hurricane Julia and four districts to varying degrees were affected. The Cayo district of course was the primary district that was affected. We had San Ignacio Town, we had Benque Viejo Town, we had Dangriga those areas were affected. Our assessment did not really include the actual damages in the municipalities because that’s the purview of the municipalities we dealt with other sections of the public road infrastructure and with that in in mind I said Cayo was affected. We have been assisting NEMO before the passage of Hurricane Julia and we are still doing so. We noticed in the Cayo district we still have some areas that are closed to the public like for example in low level wooden bridge that spans the Macal River that is still underwater. We have the Iguana Creek Bridge still under water, the Succotz Ferry as well as the Baking Pot Ferry those are still closed to the public right now. Water has started somewhat to recede but we have to be careful because we had our neighbor Guatemala that also suffered similar inclement weather conditions with the passage of Hurricane Julia and I think we are still on standby as to whether that water will be coming down and affecting Belize so we still are on a sort of standby in terms of that sort of scenario.”