Access still an issue along some roadways in central and eastern parishes
National Work Agency (NWA) assessment as shown that roadways in St. Andrew, St. Thomas and Clarendon are most-affected following continuous rainfall at the weekend associated with tropical storm Eta. Teams from the NWA are currently working to clear some 24 roadways in these parishes as well as Manchester and Trelawny.
Work to remove massive landslides along several sections of the roadway which stretches from Papine to Silver Hill Gap, as well as from Papine to Bull Bay in St. Andrew is continuing. The Irish Town main road, Cane River Road as well as Gordon Town Road remain impassable.
A section of the Gordon Town road has been significantly reduced by an extensive breakaway and cannot, at this time, accommodate single lane traffic. Motorists are therefore being strongly advised against attempting to use the area.
Access along a number of roadways in northern Clarendon has also been cut off by landslides including that from Kupius to Colonel Ridge, Danks to Crofts Hill and Orange Hill to Main Ridge. While equipment has been dispatched to clear some of these areas, progress is being hampered by material continuously falling from the oversaturated hillsides.
Roadways in eastern St. Thomas continue to be impacted by flooding as sections of the Hordley to Haining, Hordley to Bath, Pleasant Hill to Hector’s River and Morant River to Potosi corridors remain impassable due to inundation.
On the western side of the parish, the clearing of landslides continues at Smithfield along the Llandewey to Windsor Forest roadway; at Richmond Vale along the Windsor Forest to Cedar Valley roadway and at the Mahogany Vale and White River fords along the Windsor Forest to Mahogany Vale roadway. The aim is to reopen these corridors to single lane. However the team will not be able to re-establish access along the Penlyne Castle roadway today.
Elsewhere on the island, sections of the Wire Fence to Warsop and Coleyville to Ballynure roadways in Trelawny and Manchester respectively have collapsed due to failed embankments while the Wait-A-Bit to Hector’s River corridor in Trelawny is completely blocked by a landslide. There is not alternate route to this roadway.
The NWA continues to caution motorists against using roadways and bridges that are flooded, travelling at high speeds on wet and heavily-silted roadways or attempting to pass sections of roadways that have either been reduced or undermined.
