Frustrated motorists were caught in hours-long tailbacks Saturday after a crash near Beach Bay left a large section of Shamrock Road closed for the entire day.
Anyone coming in and out of Bodden Town and beyond was left stuck in lengthy jams as engineers worked to repair electricity poles that were damaged in the early morning crash.
The management of the closure and diversion caused additional frustration for drivers throughout the day.
Former district MP Osbourne Bodden said it had “crippled Bodden Town”.
CUC, in a statement to the Cayman Compass, apologised to the public for the traffic nightmare, which continued into the late hours of Saturday night.
It said the work to replace the infrastructure that was damaged by the motor vehicle accident, “was quite extensive and required major repair work to be conducted”.
The roads were fully opened by 9:49pm, the CUC statement said.
Four people were hurt in the collision, according to a short statement from police issued at 7am Saturday. All four were receiving hospital treatment for injuries that are described as serious but not life threatening.
A diversion was in place via Will T Road and Northward Road, with vehicles crawling through back roads throughout the day.
The impact caused damage to two electricity poles and power was out for much of the day for homes in the area.
CUC issued a statement advising motorists to avoid the area as they worked to repair the infrastructure.
Several hundred customers were without power throughout the day, though all had electricity restored by 9pm, according to a CUC spokesperson.
In a further statement, CUC said, the motor vehicle accident compromised the utility infrastructure which supplies power to Beach Bay and parts of Shamrock Road.
“Once the police secured the scene, the required repairs resulted in an unavoidable outage affecting 675 customers from 10:04am to 10:53am. CUC crews were able narrow the impacted outage area to 301 customers, who remained without power until 10:37pm when repairs were completed,” the CUC statement explained.
‘They crippled Bodden Town’
Osbourne Bodden, who owns a gas station in the area and was a former MP for the district, spoke out about the handling of the situation, describing it as ‘madness’.
In a Facebook statement, he said CUC and its traffic management subcontractor had “successfully crippled Bodden Town and all that traverse through it because of poor management in the Will T Lower Valley area”.
He said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Bodden told the Compass he had been receiving calls about it all day, with motorists stuck for hours in traffic complaining about ‘ineptitude and rudeness’ of workers operating the diversion.
He said he was “speaking on behalf of hundreds of frustrated drivers”.
One driver said she was in traffic from 8.30am until 11am in the morning and was shocked to experience the same gridlock on her way home.
Another commented, “Better management and traffic would flow freely. Everybody had to talk to guy before taking detour, it made no sense.”
Residents in the area, speaking on Bodden’s Facebook page, complained about the heavy traffic through a residential area where kids play on the street, with no apparent management.
The extensive detour was largely unmarked. “If it wasn’t for the bumper to bumper traffic going through all those backroads from Will T to Northward, I would never have found my way through,” one driver noted.
“Saw lots of tourists going through there as well. Not a single sign or person directing traffic through those neighborhoods.”
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