SILOAH, St Elizabeth – Bus operator Ziggy Thompson, who transports children to and from school, won’t readily forget November 6 last year.

That’s the day he and other motorists first used a torturously muddy and water-logged dirt track through a sugar cane field as detour, following a partial collapse of the Raheen Road in northern St Elizabeth.

The muddy quagmire has now given way to swirling dust since there has been little or no rain since before Christmas.

A $36 million dollar project being executed by May Pen-based C & C Construction Ltd, which started in mid-January, is slated to fix the broken road with residents hoping it will be completed in quick time, before heavy rains resume.

Bus driver Ziggy Thompson hopes Raheen road will be restored before heavy rains resume. (Photos: Garfield Myers)

The crucial Raheen Road links Siloah and surrounding communities with other sugar-cane growing neighbourhoods to the east including Balaclava.

As explained by National Works Agency (NWA) communications manager, Stephen Shaw, the road project has been contracted to last 90 days, with a reinforced concrete box culvert to replace an eroded metal culvert. The eventual failure of the metal drain triggered a partial collapse of the road.

A “proper” temporary detour is being built in the vicinity of the primary project which “in the shortest possible time” will facilitate motorists now using the route through the cane field, Shaw told the Observer.

Local residents at a shop close to the site of the road project explained to this reporter that the road collapse climaxed long-running erosion over a period of years. That, they claim was caused by a drainage canal which doubled as a drain, as well as providing irrigation for sugar cane.

Closed Raheen main road (Photo: Garfield Myers)

They laughed when it was suggested to them that the canal was just a “small” stream. “When rain fall it tun big, big river,” they declared.

However, Shaw argued that in any case, the steel culvert may well already have “outlived its natural life”.

Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth North Eastern, Delroy Slowley (Jamaica Labour Party – JLP), told the Observer that the project’s procurement process actually started “about a year ago”. That was after then Cabinet Minister in charge of roads and related infrastructure, Everald Warmington, toured northern St Elizabeth.

“At the time, the signs of deterioration (on the Raheen Road) were clear and the Minister acted proactively,” Slowley told the Observer by telephone.

Slowley, and local parish councilors Everton Fisher (Balaclava Division – PNP) and Audie Myers (Siloah Division – PNP) are hoping that the project will be completed during the current dry spell, before the traditional start of the rainy season in the year’s second quarter.

Delroy Slowley, Member of Parliament for Northeast St Elizabeth

Everton Fisher, PNP Councillor for the Balaclava division

“My hope is that it will be done on time and properly … the alternate route (through the cane field) is not the best and it will only get worse when the rains resume,” said Fisher.

Both Fisher and Myers emphasized that the sugar cane harvest is now in its early days with trucks, trailers and other heavy equipment likely to create a hazardous situation along the current alternate route through the cane field.

Myers, who, like Fisher, has repeatedly raised the collapse of the Raheen Road at St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation meetings, wants the route through the cane field to be “oiled” to make the surface easier for motorists.

“Right now is pure loose dirt, it needs to be improved,” he said.

Temporary alternative route through a cane field as seen recently (Photo: Garfield Myers)

School bus driver, Thompson, confirmed that the deteriorating Raheen Road begun “crumbling more and more” over the last year until its closure last November.

And recalling the situation when he and other motorists had to take to the cane field in early November, Thompson like everyone else, is keeping fingers crossed that the road fix will be over before heavy rains return.

“Believe me, when rain fall it (cane field route) bad bad bad …” he said.