Submerged vehicles, sliding buses, and 36 miles of road closed for the day - that's what those traversing the Coastal Plain Highway endured today. The first heavy June rains inundated the Coastal and even broke it near the Soldier Creek Bridge.
The Coastal Highway took a beating and so did our news team. Courtney Menzies was on the ground and has this story.
Courtney Menzies
"It's the first major rainfall of the 2026 rainy season and in its wake, the Coastal Plain Highway has been closed. That's because, as you can see here near the Gales Manatee junction, floodwaters have inundated it. Parts of this highway have also been shredded by fast moving floodwaters and vehicles have been caught in its depths. But this area is only one that has been severely affected by the heavy rainfall."
And today when we spoke with the Minister of Infrastructure, he explained that it's not the contractor or the chip and seal to blame - these things happen in natural disasters.
Julius Espat - Minister of Infrastructure
"the contract was signed before our term, the contractor was awarded the contract, the work was being done while we were there. The contractor I think he did a good job in my opinion. As I said before 36 miles of road and you have 20 feet with a problem and another 40 feet with a problem. People say the chip and seal is very thin but that's what it is, you can do you investigation, the strength of a road is not the pavement itself, the chip and seal, it's all the substructure that comes and the compaction that needs to be done. There are levels of quality of roads, you have the chip and seal as the third option, you have the hot mix as your second option, and the best one no doubt is concreting but the cost increases depending on which one we use. The coastal, we continued with the specifications that were there but we can't blame the contractor or the engineer what natural disasters bring."
And part of that disaster was our news team getting caught in the flood:
Courtney Menzies
"Currently, it is 1:30 in the afternoon and we are stuck around mile 16 of the coastal plain highway, where we've been for two hours. We entered the highway at 10 this morning when the water was low all the way to the Gales Point Junction. But in just an hour and a half it has risen several feet, blocking us from continuing north to La Democracia. The southern end of the highway is made impassible by flood waters as well."
The southern end ultimately cleared and the hummingbird highway was fully accessible. But while the Coastal Road was unusable for most of today, Minister Espat said it balances out.
Julius Espat - Minister of Infrastructure
"but look at the statistics, look at the numbers, 36 miles and you have a combination of 50 to 60 feet that has to be dealt with, I think percentage wise it's a fair formula to have. And those two sections, we will probably have to concrete it like what we did with the other sections last year and it worked."
"you use the road 395.7% of the time and 1% of the year you can't use it, that's acceptable too."
Up to news time, the Coastal Highway is still blocked by floodwaters that are slowly receding.
