We’ve now lost count of the number of times that we have, in this space, commented on the insensitivity of public officials to the danger travellers face by continued use of the Bog Walk Gorge in St Catherine.

Too often we have seen this road — the main link between Kingston and the North Coast — become impassable from flooding or falling boulders during heavy rain, putting lives in danger, inconveniencing travel and, in many instances, resulting in loss of property.

We remember well the heroic helicopter rescue by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) of 19 persons trapped in the Gorge in December 2004, in floods triggered by heavy rains brought on by a cold front.

At least four cars were washed away then.

Again, in October 2007, the JDF were called to rescue 50 travellers, among them children and elderly people, trapped in the Gorge for several hours by flood waters that washed away several vehicles, as well as parts of the road structure.

We still shudder at the phone conversation our reporter had with one of those trapped persons — Ms Pearline Holder, a 63-year-old Jamaican who was visiting from London.

“I’m scared,” she said. “We’re just waiting on someone to come and help us. Right now I’m sitting in water… there are loads of cars and trucks and children screaming all over the place.”

On all of those occasions, as is now the case after Tropical Storm Nicole, the Bog Walk Gorge has been blocked. The upshot is a slowing down of travel between Kingston and other major centres in the north, and great inconvenience to many people, some of whom are not minded to use the alternative routes for various reasons.

We can’t continue like this. It cannot be that each time we are subjected to heavy rains people’s lives and property are unnecessarily placed at risk and business is made to plod.

In the current situation, the National Works Agency (NWA) is unable to say when the Gorge will be reopened to vehicular traffic as parts of the roadway have been damaged by flood waters from the Rio Cobre, which overflowed its banks during the heavy rains.

The public’s predicament would have been made even worse by the fact that before Nicole the Gorge was already undergoing repairs that resulted in one-way flow of traffic.

This newspaper has tried, without success, to get from the authorities an idea as to how much money is being wasted on the Bog Walk Gorge each year.

In 2007 when we last sought the information, the Ministry of Transport and Works estimated that $20 million had been spent on repairing the Gorge over the period 2003-2007.

That $20 million, we were told, was used for remedial work and did not include major resurfacing of the road carried out approximately four years before.

Since then, many more millions have been spent on this road, leaving us to question why we continue to throw away good money after bad.

Had we opted to build the Spanish Town to Ocho Rios leg of Highway 2000 first, instead of starting the road from the other end, we would have been far advanced in ensuring that the Gorge would cease to be a source of tragedy and unnecessary expense.

The irony — according to the information we have — is that that was the plan up to the point when former Prime Minister PJ Patterson retired. However, the plan changed shortly after he stepped down.

If that information is true — and we have no reason at this point to doubt our source — the question is, who changed it, and why?