DPWH plans climate-resilient redesign of Baler-Casiguran road

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will be reconstructing the damaged Baler-Casiguran road with a redesign to include steel reinforcements to withstand calamities.

According to a "24 Oras" report by Ian Cruz on Friday, DPWH will add metal reinforcements, hexapods, wave deflectors, and cement on the new bridge design to the almost 1.5-kilometer coastal highway.

Following damages to the road caused by Super Typhoon Uwan, DPWH secretary Vince Dizon said that he could not determine whether the bridge can be considered substandard as it followed the previous design.

“Pinapacheck ko pa rin kay Usec. Lara, sa mga engineers natin pero confirmed na walang bakal kasi sa lumang design wala talagang bakal,” he said.

(I’m still asking Usec. Lara and engineers to check, but it’s confirmed that there’s no steel since our old design really had no steel.)

Dizon added that the redesign is needed as the road faces the Pacific Ocean, which means that a riprap would no longer work.

“Bagong design na, may bakal na siya, matibay na bakal at bubuhusan na natin ang buo kasi ito, riprap lang ito. So, combination ito ng bato at semento [ang bago],” he said.

(It’s already a new design since it has metal now, strong metal reinforcement and we will completely cement it, because what we have is only riprap. So, [the new one] will have a combination of stone and cement.)

The reconstruction of the Baler-Casiguran road is targeted to be completed in a year

The same design will also be applied to another damaged road in Sitio Diguisit in Barangay Zabali, Baler.

Earlier, DPWH reported that five national roads and bridges remained impassable due to Uwan as of Friday.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said that there were 625 affected road sections and 78 damaged bridges following the tropical cyclone, which caused a total damage of P126.5 million, —Jiselle Anne Casucian/LDF, GMA Integrated News