Weekend Floodwaters Damage Temporary Detour Near Belmopan

As flood recovery continues in Belmopan, Saturday’s rising waters are now causing setbacks beyond the city’s neighborhoods. The Ministry of Infrastructure Development is dealing with delays on the George Price Highway upgrade project after floodwaters forced the Mount Pleasant Bridge, just outside Belmopan, to close for about six hours. Once the water went down, crews got a clearer look at the damage, including to a temporary detour built to keep traffic moving while the bridge is replaced. That detour now has to be reconstructed, adding another challenge to the ongoing roadworks. Chief Engineer Evondale Moody spoke with News Five about the impact of the weekend flooding on the project.

 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, MIDH

“The highway was made impassable at a quarter to nine on Saturday morning and so after consultation with Minister Espat, we decided we had to close the highway, reason being that the water had exceeded twenty-three inches above the carriage way. It was almost at the guardrail level, and the velocity of the water was too much of vehicles to pass through. So, we made a concretive decision to close the highway in the abundance of safety for the general public. This event has occurred twice as far as I am aware. I have seen it in 2008 and June 2020 whereby Mount Pleasant was also over top. Hence the reason for the George Price upgrading project is we are building a bridge at that location. It just happens to occur that the rainfall occurs on Friday, because it was this week that we were going to start doing piling operation on the Goerge Price Highway and were going to shift traffic to the diversion that we have built. Because of this rainfall event, we have to go do some remedial work on the diversion and that will delay us about two to three weeks because we can commence work on the new bridge.”

 

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