The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A CAUSEWAY is being built between Spanish Wells and Russell Island after the bridge connecting the two areas collapsed and cut off the community’s main water supply.

Robert Roberts, the island’s chief counsellor, explained yesterday that residents are either using their private boats or a free ferry service to travel between the two islands.

WSC personnel sent from Nassau worked all day yesterday with local teams to restore water supplies between Spanish Wells and Russell Island and this was achieved just after 4pm. Residents were left in shock on Wednesday when the bridge caved in with a heavy vehicle and golf cart on it. No one was hurt and efforts to move the vehicle were successful.

A contract was signed in July 2019 to replace the bridge that had been there since 1992, but Works Minister Desmond Bannister previously told this newspaper the construction was delayed by losses incurred to the contractor’s equipment during Hurricane Dorian. He added the new bridge is a kit bridge that is in nine containers on Spanish Wells and only needs to be installed.

The minister said: “The plan has always been to use a barge to transport residents from one side to the next whilst the old bridge is being dismantled and the new one erected.”

With the loss of a passage, Mr Roberts said a temporary causeway will be put in place.

“Two days is for the small little barge service, correct. Tomorrow we’re hoping to have a temporary causeway in place so that by the time we’re out of the lockdown then vehicular traffic can proceed,” he said.

“Then when the contractor’s barge gets here then that will take the one that’s gonna be here tomorrow and that will be there for the time period while the bridge is being disassembled and reassembled.”

Mr Roberts could not say when the new bridge will be installed, saying that is something for the Ministry of Works to answer.

The bridge collapse in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is a hurdle, Mr Roberts said.

“General construction is open in the Family Islands but for something like the bridge or other things that are ongoing on the island, you have to get special permissions and COVID cancelling the whole work. So the contractor is not on site,” he said.