Jamaica faces $10.2B road damage after Hurricane Beryl's devastation

Jamaica: Prime Minister Andrew Holness, during a latest press conference, said that the damage to the island’s main roads after the passage of Hurricane Beryl has so far totalled $10.2 billion which might increase at the end of the final assessment of these damages.

This was disclosed by Holness on Tuesday, who said that these figures from the National Works Agency (NWA) in Jamaica are just a preliminary estimate.

According to him, the main roads make up a 5th of the 25,000 km of roads which connects the country and the rest are parochial roads.

The Prime Minister said that while assessments are still underway, some 500 parochial roads have been extensively damaged during Category 4 Hurricane Beryl’s passage just a week ago.

He also mentioned that several areas of Jamaica remain inaccessible with over 200 corridors blocked which has also hampered relief efforts.

The NWA, on Tuesday, stated that 95% of the blocked roads now afford at least single lane passage adding that it came to know about the 50 additional blocked areas on the same day. It added that only 24 road sections remain impassable with the majority of them being in St Andrew, St Thomas and Hanover.

In addition to this, the Prime Minister also said that the blocked roads have caused limited access to critical services, including hospitals, 38% of which have been damaged. He noted that the estimated cost to repair them is in excess of $1.8 billion.

According to him, the hurricane caused widespread outages of electricity, water as well as telecommunication services and the absence of these has exacerbated the suffering of the citizens of Jamaica who are still struggling to cope with the immediate aftermath of the life threatening storm. 

PM Holness remarked that moving forward, his administration’s focus has shifted towards relief efforts which provides immediate assistance and also lay the groundwork for long-term recovery as well as resilience.