The engineers say it's because of deforestation in the area. We spoke to the Chief engineer about it today:

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"So we had basically four areas that we were working on. One at the Manatee Bridge. As you may recall, we have built a new bridge there, but just beyond the bridge, one of the approaches, water came right up against the shoulder. And so we thought it was important for us to do some more erosion protection measures on the approach to the bridge. And we also are doing 500m of concrete floodway on the approach to the bridge, just in case water crosses again, then the pavement won't be deteriorated. We're also looking at, works near the Gales Point Manatee Junction. Several times we've seen that water has crossed that road segment. And so what we've done, we've added in three more new culverts."

"And then we've also added an additional two by two meter box culvert near the Comina Bridge to provide additional, hydraulic capacity for the bridge in the event we have this flooding again. We have also taken into consideration the flooding that we've had there. And so we've raised the road there 4ocm, which is about 400mm higher than it is right now. And then we will concrete that as well. So in the event we still have excessive rainfall, the road won't be scoured or anything like that. There was a third area near the Big Creek bridge. That bridge was also built new. It was also raised, but just beyond the bridge going towards Hope Creek, the water came up to the pavement and created some erosion, as well. And that was also due to the deforestation happening in that area, which created a high velocity of flow in the drain scouring the shoulders. So what we're doing here is to put in some erosion protection measures in terms of riprap and gabion baskets to try and prevent that from occurring again."

Reporter
"So it sounds like you all are actually having to retrofit this road for unforeseen climate events."

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"To some extent, yes, you could say that. But it is basically due to additional expansion that is being done along the highway, which is creating higher velocity floors in our drain. It is also creating excessive runoff that is beyond what we had anticipated."

"We cannot say if it's going to happen somewhere else again, because it is only happening within that segment that I've spoken about between Soldier Creek and Gales Point."

"But it could happen somewhere else as well If we continue to have deforestation and we continue to have excessive rainfall that are beyond the return periods that we have designed for."

Unknown Speaker
"You all trumpeted the savings that you realized on the original scope of work or the original road project, but now you're having to go retrofit certain areas. An argument or a critic might say that, well, if you had done it to specifications the first time, as had been planned, you wouldn't have to be going back now to try and retrospectively bring it up to grade."

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"Well, I wouldn't say that Jules, because everything that we have done for the coastal highway has been done in accordance with the design and specification. So I have to correct you there because we followed exactly what was designed and what was projected. But you have to bear in mind that what we are correcting now is not as a deficiency of the design. It's new aspects that have developed after we have completed the road."

"If we had gone to the government and said we were going to design everything for 1 in 100 year flood, that project would have cost us over $200 million easily. So we could only design to what we could afford. Now we have to accept a level of risk, once we're doing this type of infrastructure work, because it's what the country can afford. It's only that we have the savings left over from the project that we could go in and correct those now. if we did not have any savings, it would have been very difficult for us to address those shortfalls. But it's not as a result of the design."

The work is scheduled to be finished in June.

Moody also shared pictures of the Philip Goldson Highway between Belcan and Coney Drive hot mix paving that they were working on today.