Sea Wall to Be Built at Roselle in St. Thomas

A sea wall is to be built at Roselle in St. Thomas, following damage to the old structure, due to the passage of Hurricane Beryl, recently.

The Roselle main road falls under the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project (SCHIP), but Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, explained that the failure of the road was not the fault of the project or the contractors.

“This section of the road was impacted by storm surges and water coming over onto the road. There was an existing wall in place, so when we were building the road, there was no need to interfere with [that], but the hurricane damaged the wall. In fact, it totally destroyed the wall and came in onto the road,” the Prime Minister told journalists during a tour on Wednesday (August 14).

“This is something that the Government will have to pursue as supplementary work, meaning we will have to have an additional budget because of the hurricane, to put in a sea wall,” he added.

Mr. Holness said the sea wall “is not the final or even the most effective defence”, and there may have to be other revetment works and other forms of protection.

He argued that a more fitting solution would be to realign the road, away from the coast, but the Government had made a strategic decision to support the existing residents, communities and commerce.

“Think about it, if we had moved the road internally, then essentially what would happen is that the communities that exist along this pathway would eventually die off, as the traffic that is passing through would choose to use the better road and not use this road. What we want to do is to encourage the development of the area, and so we took a decision to keep the existing alignment and to repair it, but that adds great complications,” Mr. Holness said.

He noted, however, that in the long term, the intention of the Government is to build another road more inland, and to create new communities along those roads.

In fact, Mr. Holness said that the development and the identification of lands for the Port Antonio bypass has begun.

“So, we’re going to do the Port Antonio bypass and then over time, connect that bypass with a road that is more inland, that will lead us to be connected to this section from Harbour View to Yallahs. So, we’ll still have this road. It will still be in good condition, but over time, the intention is to move commerce and residents and other activities more inland, and then have this road as a more scenic, touristic route that if it is impacted by weather, the loss is not so great,” the Prime Minister said.

In the meantime, Technical Manager at SJE Consultants, Dionne Sampson-Russell, explained that the damaged section of the Roselle main road will be reconstructed with a new rubble masonry wall to protect the roadway and all the existing infrastructure.

“So, at this point, the contractors have already started to clear the debris, remove the sections of collapsed wall, and have started excavating. This wall will be five metres deep, and then we will have at least 1.5 metres of this wall below ground, so that we have a good foundation or protection,” she said.