Flooding at Kendal causeway and Middlesex Bridge…
The heavy rains on Wednesday caused flooding in many parts of the country, but the most affected were the community of Middlesex and villagers who regularly cross the Kendal River. While the causeway at Kendal was under approximately seven feet of water, the Middlesex Bridge was out of commission for at least twelve hours. According to Ministry of Works C.E.O., Cadet Henderson, he was summoned to the area at about three this morning and sometime tonight the bridge should re-open to traffic. We contacted Henderson by phone today to find out just how much damage was caused by the rising rivers.
Cadet Henderson, C.E.O., Ministry of Works
“At Middlesex bridge, most of the over four hundred cubic yards of material that we estimated had been lost by the flooding, is in place. A few minutes ago, I was told that at four-thirty, which is about this time, the bridge is to be open to traffic. So if it is not open yet, anytime now we can expect traffic to be flowing at that location.”
Delahnie Bain
“What kind of work had to be done there today?”
Cadet Henderson
“The bridge suffered minor damage itself; just the wing walls on the Dangriga side came off. That was restored but about eighty feet of the gravel approach was washed away, mainly on the Dangriga side and that was the bulk of what we had to restore. But there’s gravel right there in the river, which was a source. We had equipment on both sides and also we brought in boulders from Pomona Base to kinda fortify or reinforce the fill so that the next major flooding we have there, we have less loss.”
“At Kendal, we mobilized equipment towards Kendal even though it is still reported to be a couple feet under water. The water has gone down sufficiently that the boulders on the approach are already exposing. A lot of what we have to do there I believe is clearing of debris; trees and logs and vegetable matter. The water under the bridge is fairly deep so unlike what we had to do at Middlesex where we used chainsaw, we expect that it’ll be a matter of just an excavator pushing the stuff into the deeper waters.”
