The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

A CENTRAL Andros businesswoman says the closure of the Fresh Creek Bridge forced her to shut down her business last month, and she now spends her days waiting for any work that comes her way.

“I just sit and pray that somebody call me that they need something,” Hanna Mott told The Tribune yesterday.

Ms Mott, who runs Diamond Wheels on Wheels and sells food at the roadside, said trade slowed so much after the bridge closed that she had to put everything on hold. She is now trying to sell soft drinks and food from her home while looking for other work in the community.

“I put everything on hold because of the bridge, people can’t come over with their cars,” she said. “You can’t hardly go shopping and nothing like that it doesn’t make sense.”

She said businesses in the area had lost at least 50 percent of their profits because customers could no longer easily reach them.

“A lot of people over here lost a lot,” she said.

Ms Mott said she had seen a local school principal walking students halfway across the bridge so they could get home, and that some children were left disappointed after missing the school’s fun day because they could not get across.

With cars barred from the bridge, residents have been parking near one end, walking to the other side and trying to find rides from there.

Ms Mott said there is no reliable ferry between the northern and southern sides of Central Andros. One ferry ran for about a month before stopping, she said, and another began earlier this week but left after a single day.

Ms Mott, who lives in Davis Creek and has run her business for about two years, said the settlement had also suffered power outages, poor telephone service and limited transport in recent months.

She criticised the government’s response and called on Central, Mangrove Cay and South Andros MP Leon Lundy to make sure the bridge is properly repaired rather than patched up.

Her frustration was echoed yesterday outside the Office of the Prime Minister by Progressive Liberal Party supporter Edison McKenzie, who accused Mr Lundy of wanting to put a “band-aid” on the bridge instead of fixing it properly.

“The people in Central Andros are fed up, and we will not accept no patching up on no bridge anymore,” he told reporters.

Mr McKenzie said Mr Lundy had assured residents that repairs were under way. He also claimed several residents had been hurt because of the bridge’s condition, recalling an incident in which a man’s foot went through the bridge, leaving him needing about 30 stitches.

Minister of Works and Family Island Affairs Clay Sweeting told reporters that a structural component needed to support the bridge had arrived in the country, and that the contractor would carry out the repairs when the weather allowed.

The Fresh Creek Bridge, which links Andros Town and Coakley Town, was condemned in August after engineers found that a structural support had sunk. The sinking shifted the bridge’s weight onto other supports and caused three sections to drop by about nine inches.

Officials first planned a temporary bridge to keep vehicles moving while a permanent replacement was designed. The government dropped the idea after contractors estimated it would cost more than $10m. Mr Sweeting said at the time that the cost “wasn’t feasible to the ministry”.

In September, the government said it would instead spend about $400,000 repairing the existing bridge, with work expected to begin on October 1 and take four to six weeks. The repaired bridge is meant to serve in the interim while the government tenders for a permanent replacement.

Concerns about the more than 50-year-old bridge are not new. In 2020, it was closed after a mailboat struck it. In 2023, officials acknowledged it was in poor condition, as residents raised concerns about its safety and design.