Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
Residents inspect the collapsed section of the Harbour View bridge in Harbour View, St Andrew that has left the east of the island cut off from Kingston.

Phyllis Thomas, Enterprise Editor

The country's infrastructure had been at Tropical Storm Gustav's mercy since Thursday and he showed none. And so it was that the Hope River Bridge in Harbour View, popularly called the Harbour View bridge, the main access point for thousands of people commuting between Bull Bay, eastern Jamaica and the Corporate Area, was cut in two.

People residing on the eastern side of Harbour View are now stranded, including Nicole Foster-Burnett, who is thankful to be alive today. She was in a car, crossing the bridge, just as it began falling.

Foster-Burnett was on her way from the hospital with a friend and other members of her family, about 12:25 am. They had gone some distance on the bridge, she said, when she noticed that "something was not right with it".

Bridge crashed

"There was a lot of water on the bridge and then I saw the rail fall," she said. The bridge crashed in the water with an eerie swooshing sound, sending water in the air. They were almost at the edge of what was left of the bridge with the raging water beneath when the road in front of them started to disappear.

"My cousin screamed and my friend who was the driver started reversing, but it was like the road was splitting away, coming at us. It was terrifying."

Foster-Burnett is separated from her five-year-old daughter, and mother, who are left at home on the other side of the bridge. She is staying with other family members elsewhere.

No alternative route

There is no alternative route for entering the Corporate Area from that end as Dallas is also impassible.

However, Prime Minister Bruce Golding said at a press conference yesterday that the National Works Agency was making arrangements to begin erecting a temporary Bailey bridge there, no later than today. He promised that the team would work 24 hours a day to complete the work by early next week.

In June 1986, the Harbour View bridge was undermined by the surging waters from the Hope River, during flood rains that lashed the island. A Bailey bridge was used to get across, and river training was said to be in progress.

For some residents of communities near to Harbour View, the collapse of the bridge was pending. In 1993, one letter writer to The Gleaner said, "Recently, I have been noticing that the bridge at Harbour View has been deteriorating and it is our only means of conducting both social and personal business. Very soon, the bridge may break in two."

phyllis.thomas@gleanerjm.com