River washes out seawall; airport road in danger

While most of the public’s road rage has been directed at the perennially bruk-up stretch of the Northern Highway between the flag monument and Haulover Bridge, today a potentially more serious problem arose a few miles north. It seems that the combination of a strong current and weak seawall has washed out the embankment along a section of the highway to the point where the Belize River now threatens to cut the critical route in two. Traffic is now reduced to a single lane while engineers from the Ministry of Works figure out how to make temporary repairs, to be followed by a more permanent solution. Motorists are asked to drive with extreme caution in this area. A quick inspection of nearby seawalls along the river indicates the problem may not be an isolated one. The Northern Highway was raised substantially in 1986, resealed in the 90’s and repaired in several places after Hurricane Keith. Engineering experts tell us that trying to rein in a river that has been making its own route for thousands of years is no easy task. It is also extremely expensive to do properly.