The Government says it will investigate way of bringing from St. Lucia 200 metres of Bailey bridge that should have arrived on a French naval vessel on Friday.
The vessel, Dumont D’urville came to St. Vincent with disaster relief items but could not transport the Bailey bridge because of size constraints.
“We are going to very swiftly investigate ways to bring those very important bridges from St. Lucia and to get the other bridges that we have ordered from other sources, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, so that people can traverse some of the rivers that lost bridges,” Gonsalves said.
Fourteen bridges were destroyed during the passage of a low-level trough system on Christmas Eve, which left EC$330 million in damage, in addition to nine persons dead and three missing. A further 14 bridges were damaged.
The relief items on-board the ship were donated by the government and companies in Martinique and Vincentian associations in Barbados.
“Anytime you have a humanitarian crisis and a brotherly friendly nation can come by from just up the chain with 20 tonnes of supplies, it is a moment for us to celebrate our relations and celebrate our brotherhood as Caribbean people and citizens of the world,” Gonsalves said.
One of my old business companies has available hundreds of used portable bridges for sale, Bailey and other brands.
Available today
6 Bay 40 tonne capacity 36 ft span EC$80,000
7 Bay 35 tonne capacity 42 ft span $90,500
8 Bay 30 tonne capacity 48 ft span $100,000
9 Bay 24 tonne capacity 54 ft span $110,000
10 Bay 20 tonne capacity 60 ft span $115,000
12 Bay 16 tonne capacity 72 ft span $130,000
The longer the bridge the less tonage capacity.
There are also a range of bridges that require painting and some small engineering works starting from EC$10,000
Mr. B., is what you saying with them numbers?
Tell the people because some go conveniently miss it.
I also know the whereabouts of just about every Bailey bridge for sale in the world, the value, the price asked, and often the price sold for.
So I am watching with interest.
Mr P, what I am saying is dont pay to much for a Bailey bridge, because at some time in the future we will look at the books and compare the prices. Just like some of the second hand airport equipment, I know where it came from and the prices and values of the very same piece of equipment or truck. Equipment and trucks have numbers stamped all over the chassis that make it easy to get the history of each piece including values and prices, in todays age no secret is safe. I carry out what may well be described as compare shopping.
One of the things we need to be wary of is buying through a middleman, there can be no reason at all to do so.
Its also another reason why we should have transparency legislation in place, it helps stop people from having nasty thoughts about situations.
Also that these bridges have weight restrictions depending on the span. Some of them will have to be restricted to one truck at a time and require to be manned. Short spans are simple and can carry almost whatever weight we want, in fact as long as the stanchions are safe and secure, they may well be the way to go instead of building bridges that cost millions of dollars, they can be replaced for a few hundred thousand dollars. And replaced again every ten years if necessary, its a matter of stopping the fiscal dunce regime from wasting our money, painting multi million dollar bridges red and spending as much on an opening as they would on a Bailey bridge.
Of course bridges can be found that carry greater weights, slightly higher prices, but nothing in this technology is impossible.
By the way transport is not a problem, stick the bridge in Lucia on Jadent T or on Kelleys similar flat bottomed boat, then you can unload it almost anywhere on our coast, at a point most convenient for its final location. Its not rocket science. If you dont have the money let Kelley bring it for a chunk of land somewhere, he is usualy pretty cool at helping out.