Crooked Tree Causeway Falling Apart?

A News Five team is just back from the Sarstoon Island in southern Belize where a confrontation took place just last week between Guatemalan navy officers and the Belize National Coastguard. There are two versions of what really went down and we will have that story coming up soon. But on Sunday, the recently elevated Crooked Tree causeway, completed days before, cracked, creating a serious hazard for vehicular traffic. And by Monday, an entire portion of the causeway fell apart with the first drops of rain. The works were done in the weeks leading up to the convention of Edmond Castro, and were funded through that magical, wondrous miracle drug called Petrocaribe. The fact is that the immediate cracking and erosion in the road comes as no surprise to some villagers who claim that the work was done improperly and in a hurry. They say that any elevation in the road will require a retaining wall, and if that’s not bad enough they say that the material used on the road is the wrong kind which turns into slippery slush, creating its own hazard. On Monday, we spoke to former Crooked Tree Chairman George Guest, who, as usual, was very vocal.

George Guest

George Guest, Former Chairman, Crooked Tree

“A retaining road holds the road together, but if you had put the bridge in like I suggested in the first place, the bridge would have fit between these two bridges and you could have knocked all this out and the water would have flown freely like it used to. Right now it’s not going anywhere. We will flood again. The whole of the village will flood this time because he built a dam. He built a dam. And I’ve got common sense. I mean common sense. And I’ve got a brain between my ear-holes. Castro ain’t got that. He says that the Petrocaribe money is building this causeway. Well, I’ve got one word for Castro. Where’s the Petrocaribe money? Where is it? It’s going back into the lagoon Castro. As for Mr. Patt, who called me an old fool, who doesn’t know how to build a road…I can tell him he doesn’t know how to build a wall that holds the road together. Instead of taking out all this stuff from Blackburn, why didn’t you top it, or cap it before you left?”

Mike Rudon

“Talk to me about the material itself, because we’ve been slipping and sliding all over the road.”

George Guest

“This material is not the right material, unless you cap it first. Put the big river stones underneath this, then put this on, then when you get to a certain height put more river stone on and bounce it in, not just grade it and then dump on top of that. No sir. They don’t know how to build roads.”