Tag: 2024-06-17

The rains are here and less than a year after it was officially opened, sections of the Coastal Plain Highway’s surface have been compromised by flood waters. Seventy-eight million U.S. dollars was invested into the construction of the highway. The Government of Belize boasted six million dollars in savings upon the completion of the road. Undoubtedly, the Coastal Plain Highway is a great service to residents along the stretch, as well as Belizeans commuting to and from the south. But, over the weekend, a portion of the road surface on the approach to the Soldier Creek Bridge cracked up and pieces were strewn across the highway. The Ministry of Infrastructure Development issued a press release informing that the location of the damage occurred at mile seventeen and a half because of flooding associated with heavy rainfall. The ministry says that a box culvert was flooded due to backwater from Soldier Creek about six hundred feet away. That issue was caused by blockage of the creek and deforestation due to the recent wildfires. We spoke with Chief Engineer, Evondale Moody, who further explained what led to the damages. 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, MIDH

“What I found out this morning is that there are land clearing being done upstream whereby logging is occurring and of course we had the forest fires over the last two months within that area as well. And so what transpired you had blockage of the soldier creek itself and because of that it affected the overflow culvert we have on the approach to the Solider Creek Bridge. We have two culverts that are three meters wide by one point five meters high and those culverts were designed under the Coastal Plain Highway Project as overflow culvert for Soldier Creek Bridge. But they were never designed to accommodate all that flood water that was supposed to be passing under the bridge. So because of the blockage of the creek, that runoff was diverted to the tributaries that are the inlet for those culverts instead of going to the creek itself and under the bridge. Because if you may know, that bridge is similar to the one called Sibun Bridge. Both structures were built a long time ago and they have a clearance of ten meters highway. So we still had sufficient capacity and hydraulic flow under those structure. So the run off diverted through those tributaries significantly affected those two culverts because those two culverts did not have the hydraulic capacity to contain that water. So that overflowed the road there causing the pavement to be deteriorated. From what I saw on the site there was also a large log which is like the whole tree itself that was blocking one of the culvert that came down that tributary and we also observed there was no damage to the embankment of the road itself in that section.”

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.”

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.”