Flood-damaged Coastal Highway to Be Repaired with Concrete

Images that surfaced on social media following the destruction of a portion of the Coastal Plain Highway showed pieces of broken pavement and exposed gravel. This led many to question the integrity of highway pavement. Those concerns were also put to the M.I.D.H’s Chief Engineer, Evondale Moody. Here is how he responded. 

 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, MIDH

“The pavement structure we have there is bituminous surface dressing which is just two quotes of bitumen with stone chippings on top. That is the traditional paving in Belize and that is what was implemented on the Coastal Plain Highway. Photos you have seen will depict that it is something critical happening on the Coastal Highway, but I believe as individuals and as a country we need to look at the project holistically because the entire project is thirty-six miles. The damage that has been done to the highway on the approach to the Soldier Creek Bridge is only a hundred meters, which would be zero point zero, zero, one seventh of a mile, which is really minute, but because you are looking at the picture and the way the media spun it, it would look like the entire Coastal Road has fallen apart. I don’t think that is the case and that shouldn’t be the information disseminated to the public because that is not the intent or the idea. When we designed the Coastal Highway four or five years ago, we took into consideration all the climate factors we thought were necessary for us ti project on where the flood path will occur or the flooding will be intensified, however you guys know climate change is real and it changes every single day. So, we did not expect we would have that problem at that location, however we still took it into consideration with the installation of those two large culverts. Those culverts were never there before, it was only the bridge. So, in addition to that we ended up raising the approach to the bridge two meters. Can you imagine if the approach was not raised those meters, then the road would have been impassible.”