Horsepath road caves in, PWD to fix
5th District Representative, Elvis Harrigan on site where the road has been damaged. Photo: Aneka Edwards/VINO
ROAD TOWN, Tortola, VI – After a heavy downpour, a road in Horsepath collapsed in the middle making it impassable for a few hours yesterday, Monday August 22.
VINO was on the scene, where District Representative Elvis ‘Juggy’ Harrigan and Public Works Department officials were assessing the damage and the way forward in fixing it.
The road, which is the vicinity of Nito’s residence, caved in sometime during the wee hours Monday morning and was reported by businessman Juanito ‘Nito’ Rubain. He informed VINO that he had to park his chicken bus in another location and walked to his home.
According to Hon. Harrigan, he got the call around 5 a.m. “One of the things that hurt me the most is the inconvenience for the people that live up here. Because the road is so narrow people can’t drive up and you have an entrepreneur here who has to carry all of his stuff…he has a chicken bus and had to carry stuff on his head.”
The 5th district representative went on to state that the mishap occurred because of the poor job done by the previous administration – the National Democratic Party (NDP).
Residents, PWD officials and Hon. Harrigan discussing potential solutions to fix the road. Photo: VINO
“I inherited this problem. It was a sewerage line that was fixed years ago and the road was not fixed properly. They cut the middle of the road to lay sewerage line…you see nothing here to hold the road, so it must wash out! I was not surprised; it was just a matter of time before it collapsed. Only a matter of time,” he disclosed.
Meanwhile, Musa Muhammad, a Road Officer attached to the Public Works Department told VINO that over the years after working with roads “we can expect these kinds of things to occur”.
“The next step is that the PWD will place some material in the hole to make the road passable so that residents can traverse back and forth. In the long term, the road will have to be re-surfaced,” he explained.
Furthermore, Hon. Harrigan stated that the PWD already has a design to fix the road permanently and “that will be done in short order”.
21 Responses to “Horsepath road caves in, PWD to fix”
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i heard Dolores on the radio on this Judggie she got ahead of you
Wow! Wouldn’t have been nice to have been driving on it as it collapsed. I’ve noticed a trend that really should be remedied. I’m unsure of what the exact reason is behind the cutting, electric or water sewage, but there are situations where the road surface has been cut across the width to install pipe and the road is then filled in with sand that washes away and causes a fairly deep ditch. On my daily travels there are 2 such ditches in the Ballast are and a couple more in Belle Vue. The later two were somewhat remedied but not the former. One of theses ditches has a deep hole on the one side and an undermined road on the other. Obviously the purpose of these ditches is for the benefit of the homeowner. It would make sense that the cost of repairing the road should be an inherent cost of the job in the first place. These ditches should be filled in properly, not with sand that washes away! If you cut it up then you fill it in. Yes, it’s unfortunate but it is a cost of building a home and having services brought to that home. It’s just another example of the country being treated as garbage dump.
I agree with you 100% Inherent Cost. Plus, these residents should suit gov’t. Can you imagine if this had fallen in with someone. This stuff is so darn unacceptable.
There seems to be a trend here. Everything seems to be the last government’s fault. If you thought that it was just a matter of time before the road caved in then why didn’t you address the problem before it caved in? You sound like a real fool now. The infrastruture of this country has been falling apart for the last decade and instead of playing the blame game the incumbent and the rest of his party had 4 long years to come up with a solution but instead they have sat on their behinds and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! My advise: STOP BLAMING, STOP COMPLAINING AND START PLANNING!!
What does this have to do with politics? Nothing, it is unfortunate that either the contractor or responsible govt body misjudged or simply did a poor job of rebuilding the road after the sewerage pipes were laid, only a lunatic can attribute something like this to a political administration. This is nothing more than more oversight and poorworkmanship in construction. Put blame where it is to go, and please stop the political nonsense
juggy….you sound like a real idiot!
Juggy u is a fake u were not real to the 5 people and so u must leave no more 4 years of u
scatter your backside Harrigan did more in two years than what deloris did in 4 years..he will get back..so tell we again where are the computers she took?????
If I can remember this area good, the fault of this road failure is due to the result of poor drainage. There is a ghut that needs to be corrected just like many other areas in the BVI. The government needs better building regulations and needs to improve the drainage problems through out the BVI to prevent future problems like this. Drainage First!
we’re now correcting all of ndp mistakes….juggy fixing delores’ mess and fraser fixing ronnie’s mess
BIG TIME YALL…
And you are so blind and ignorant that you can’t see that this is at the core of poor representation? So what did they do with their four years? Some of you make comments that are bordering on stupid. We have a serious outbreak of mental constipation here in the BVI and it is evident on these blogs. Fortunately there is a cure for it and it’s free. It’s called Read, Listen and Learn (RLL). People like you remind me of the days when we used to have donkeys and mules and they had blinders on. Just in case you might wonder, the reason for the blinders was for them to see only where we wanted to go and nothing else.
I am sick of hearing these people blaming other people. When u took the job was to correct the problem
not to blame a former government. Just spend time to solve the problem and less time blaming the NDP.
You took the words right out of my mouth… Couldn’t have said it any better.
What a roaring jacka$$$$!!!!! He knew the road would collapse, potentially injuring or even killing people, but he kept that information all to himself until now! Juggy, what do you think you’re fooling with that BS? Do you realise how stupid you sound saying you know all along this would happen, but never said anything about it? Did Delores pave this road herself? Who was the contractor? What surrounding issues caused the road to undermine? The concrete didn’t just disappear sir, it happened for a reason. Instead of trying to find a solution you complain about NDP this and that!! First it was Dancia blaming Black for the state of the school in East, nevermind she’s in 4yrs now, then Fraser and crew blaming Ronnie for what’s happening at BVIEC, nevermind they’re aware of the issues, now we have Juggy playing the same game. Why ask to be elected if you’re not going to fix the problems, just whine and carry on like a damn toddler. It’s obvious that the road was destroyed becuase of an issue with draining. You can see from the pic lots of water was directed down that road which shouldn’t be the case. Do we know whether private owners in taht area made alterations to their property which routed water the other way? These are the things we need to look at and remedy if necessary, not bitching, moaning and finger pointing like kids in the school yard!!!
I’m so sick of you guys it’s not funny!!
Juggy please get real….did you really say that…only a matter of time….welllll sa…..only couple more months and you will be out of your misery….lol
How much more foolish can we get? We are becoming just like our representatives, we can’t see the forest for the trees. Anyone with any bit of common sense should know that leadership is not about blame. Yet for every problem that exists these elected officials are blaming their predecessors. Hmm. Let me see. When they were campaigning last elections what were they telling the people? Weren’t they promising to “fix the problems?” Now they are all saying they inherited the problems. Is this the new mantra of the VIP? Well, if this isn’t the dumbest of excuses. And we the people are taking it sitting down? Come on people time to get real.
Harrigan sounds like the fool that he really is coming at the eleventh hour blaming the previous administration. Did he really say that he knew it was only a matter of time that the road collapse? Does he really think we in the fifth are as dense as he is? Here’s something for you Honourable Harrigan. When you were first elected to office you should have taken an inventory (an assessment) of the problems you inherited. Next you were to let the people know what you were up against. Last but most important, you should have devised a plan to go about correcting the problems. Nothing fancy, just common sense. Just goes to show that you are only interested in the pension. We suspected this all along. You want to be reelected just to get the pension. How self serving? You sound like Dancia Penn in the 8th District. After four wasted years you are trying to act like you really care? You really think that a photo op. is going to save you. You have to come better than that.
Some home owners also dig ditches and fail to fix them. I heard about a problem in Major Bay, so I went to take a look, and what I say is not funny. One homeowner undermine a road so bad that the highest part of the hill now has a hole underneath the road. The people who live in the two house on that hill now has to walk home with groceries and all while the home owner who caused the problem could drive to his back door. It is my understanding that one of the home owners who is now affected asked them to not dig under the road and he was blasted with curse word, now he is suffering the consequences. The affected home owners need to drop a law suit on the home owner, the contractor and the excavator operator. They need to be taught a lesson because now I wonder who is going to fix that mess I saw up there. Government also need to do something about these people who undermine other people’s road. I sure would not want to walk up that hill in Major Bay with groceries on a regular, and that hillside cannot and will not be fixed quickly nore easily. Sue them pants off them behind. It is disgsting how the innocent have to suffer for the guilty because of stupidity – what I saw up that hillside could have been avoided. People have a half acre of land and want to build a house on all then disturbe the neighbour.
I agree with you whole heartedly. No one is accountable for their actions. It has sadly become a country where people do as they want with no care for others. The main reason, because there are no repurcussions! The affected home owner should have been able to call for immediate assistance and had an official out there immediatley to assess the situation and put an injunction in place until proper plans were submitted to do the job properly. No one cares. It’s all about who you know. Whoever does what they want to do at a cheaper cost to themselves and as a result the costs of repairing the multitude of resulting problems is multiplied. Day after day, it’s nonsense. No planning, no accountabilit, no governance. The BVI is no longer a paradise and is far from being natures little secret. It is destroying itself quicker than immaginable. It’s time to stop coddling your family, bending the rules, cutting corners and focusing only on yourselves! Rules, regulations need to be upheld and monitored. Someone needs to care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is often times difficult to determine road failures just from pictures. But a cursory glance at the pics suggest that contributing causes to the failure include poor drainage, lack of adequate and timely maintenance, and poor road cut repair. Street/road cut weakens and shortens the useful life if they are not performed properly. Most potholes/road failures are attributable to traffic and/or water.
From the pictures, it appears( with all the cracks) as if water (runoff) infiltrated the base/subbase and washed away the soil, creating voids beneath the concrete riding surface which eventually resulted in the collapse. The recent flood water seeping into subgrade may have accelerated the collapse. Water is a nemesis of any road; we need to keep water off of road surfaces ( no ponding) and out of the base and subgrade. This road needs a complete reconstruction, not an overlay. Further, the VI need a road master plan: design, construction, maintenance, repair.
To movement: Jus for info purposes. The land owners did not contribute th this. The road was ok until they dig it to put in the sewerage system which was needed. It had a sewerage blockage from last year after the hurricane and w W&S fixed it three weeks ago and did not put the right material in the hole as they said the PWD was going to do it. The water that is running on the road in not from horse path alone but from further up in the hills and Juggy knew about this cuz the water fall started last year October when we had the hurricane and he was up here and saw what was happening. So please some one tell Juggy that he did not inherit anything. Ask him how often he was horse path after the hurricane last year after he saw what happenng.