Damaged bridge cuts off Bz. City from west
There was good news and bad news today from flooded areas in the west and south of the country. The good news is that in many areas the waters are receding; the bad is that what the sunshine has revealed is that a number of roads, bridges, and buildings took a serious beating. In the first of four flood related stories on tonight’s newscast, Jacqueline Woods reports from the Western Highway on the state of a clogged artery of transportation desperately in need of a bypass.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The Beaver Dam Bridge at mile thirty-nine on the Western Highway sustained major structural damage during the flood.
Cadet Henderson, Chief Engineer, Min. of Works
“The damage is three fold. One, the Belize side abutment is actually split in two. A crack developed and the crack has opened to six inches. And so we need to restore integrity to that support for the bridge. Secondly, the pier has suffered significant settlement. It has settled and rotated towards the downstream, and this has cause heavy distortion in the deck system that resulted in cracks on the floor system as well.”
Today, vehicles lined the highway on both sides of the bridge as motorists waited patiently to cross. But the Ministry of Works did not allow any vehicles to pass. Instead, the authorities allowed people to walk cross the bridge with their luggage to board supplemental transport on the other side.
Cadet Henderson
“What we are doing right now is to restore the earthworks on the Belize side approach. As you can see, it is shattered, fractured and it’s very unstable. We’ll loosen it in a while, we already have some material, but we are awaiting some boulders which is more stable for us to put at the base. And within the next two hours, what we want to do after restoring the stability to that approach, is to allow single lane traffic of light vehicles only, not more four wheels, two axles, to cross the bridge only on this upstream lane of the bridge.”
Although the floodwaters did contribute to the bridge’s collapse, Cadet Henderson, Chief Engineer in the Ministry Works says the damage was caused by erosion that had occurred over a period of time and eventually undermined the bridge’s support system.
Cadet Henderson
“This area I was told wherethe pier was built once had a cave and so it is likely that that save was filled in with imported material. We poked it with a pipe and we brought up some materials that is not alluvial deposits.”
Jacqueline Woods
“So what occurred would have taken place anyway, it just happened a little bit earlier because of the floodwater?”
Cadet Henderson
“Well this bridge has been here since 1975 and erosion happened in the past, but never to this extent. Obviously the material around the support has been lost, moved by the flood and this is the result of it.”
Henderson says the Beaver Dam Bridge, which is one of the oldest in the country, was scheduled to be replaced in 2003.
Jacqueline Woods
“As a result of what happened at the Beaver Dam Bridge, will the Ministry or Works be assessing other major bridges along this highway and in general other major bridges across the country in case to see if they can withstand any other disaster?”
Cadet Henderson
“This is the last of the older bridges, we have assessed bridged countrywide, and we had a list of twenty-seven bridges for replacement, six of which are in progress right now as we speak.”
“We have already advanced the priority on this bridge for immediate replacement. You may have noticed that this bridge is on an offset, it’s not on this very straight alignment, so the new bridge will be perfectly aligned with both side of the highway.”
But as work is being done to repair the damage, Henderson says at this time he still cannot say whether they can restore adequate safety at the Beaver Dam Bridge that would allow heavier vehicles to cross.
Cadet Henderson
“When the waters recede and we get a better sense of the level of damage on the river floor, we will then determine whether we will be able to restore this bridge by jacking it, or whether we have to put a temporary single lane bridge on the side.”
Jacqueline Woods
“So for the moment or the time being at least the bigger type vehicles won’t be able to use this bridge.”
Cadet Henderson
“No, we won’t permit it.”
Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
Word from Beaver Dam late this evening is that the bridge is now open to vehicular traffic, with the exception of heavily laden trucks.
