Next week Monday, March 27th, the Department of Public Works will be conducting a water drainage in Palm Beach, where puddles of rainwater often sit in front of the gas station in the area, causing disruption in traffic. The DOW will be closing the road in that area in order to work and make this roadway accessible again to drivers.
This project contains different phases. The first phase consists of improving the flow of traffic in the area. For this, they will be renewing the asphalt from the Citgo gasoline station up until the Santa Anna Pharmacy. This phase includes 3 segments. The first segment involves digging for laying down pipes in the ground, pouring down cement and connecting the new drainage system on the back profile at Palma Real. In the second segment, they will be removing the asphalt cap on the road that leads to the Santa Anna Pharmacy.
The tasks for the second segment will take place between 11pm and 7am every night for 4 consecutive days, according to the director of DOW, Marlon Croes. In the daytime, the road will be open for all vehicles. The third segment involves pouring down asphalt on the road, which will take an entire night. Because of this, they will be closing the road from 9pm to 12pm the following day.
In terms of the second phase of this project, this consists of expanding the culvert situated in the walls of the crossroad near Tanki Real, which is located behind the former Palm Beach supermarket. The third phase will also contain expansions of culverts, namely the one at Keito, where rainwater passes through two different paths before entering the salt lake in front of the hotels. These two pathways will be amplified in order to improve the flow of water passing through. The fourth phase will be conducted in the area of Palm Beach 94B, where they will be profiling the road again so that the water flowing by can reach the salt lake from the northern side.
There will be some changes in the direction of traffic during this period. When the first phase commences, road workers will be occupying the roadway at the crossroad near the CMB bank around the hotel area and will continue northbound, ending at the back side of the gasoline station in Palm Beach.
The first phase of the culvert will take around 30 workdays. Because of this, they will be closing the roadway in the area for 6 weeks, so that they can properly complete all necessary tasks. The last task in the culvert phase consists of laying down asphalt on the road, which as mentioned before, will take 4 working days.
The DOW asks the community and tourists around the Palm Beach area to keep the roadwork and the disturbance that this will cause in mind. Croes asks to be understanding and patient during the duration of the project.
Croes also added that this project was one that they have identified a while ago and that they have already done some work in the back side of the gas station to fix the area, but “we still have to connect the drainage system to the salt lake and increase the capacity of the culverts by laying down new pipes, basically because the passing water in the current culvert system is so much that it’s blocking more water from flowing in. As a result, the water level keeps rising.”
According to Croes, this work will alleviate the area of the gasoline station, where rainwater usually sits for a long time.
