Gales Point Village is Thankful for Newly Built Coastal Highway

We also heard from Jason Altshaft, the chairman of Gales Point Village. The entrance to the community also experienced a significant amount of flooding, following the weekend rainfalls. It is an area prone to flooding. Thankfully, flood waters did not damage the newly constructed road infrastructure. Chairman Altshaft says that the flood waters presented some minor inconveniences to residents, but overall, the community remains grateful for the roadway they now enjoy.

 

Voice of: Jason Altshaft, Chairman, Gales Point Manatee

“We did experience quite a bit of rain that came down. It ended up being a flooding situation, probably a little bit due to some of the fires we had where we had a little more rapid waters coming down. All in all, we haven’t had any serious issues with the road yet. This is a good test. Unfortunately, it is not quoting a year old, July is when we christened it. But I can’t take anything away from our Belize engineers. They had this thing engineered in the middle of the summer by a European team and I always thought that was kind of strange because they wouldn’t know where the worst spots were. And that has notoriously been a spot where people have died there from flooding in the past. I have seen that water go from zero standing in the valley to at least twenty feet deep within about thirty minutes. So, I know it can change rapidly depending on the rainstorm funnel a lot of water through there in an area where there really is not a river except for when it rains this hard. So, I think that is a challenge. We have always known this road has been a challenge from day one, the Manatee people have known how to manage and predict the ways of the Coastal Road. But it sure is a blessing to have a way in and out and quite a bit less flooding all in all.”