On Wednesday, August 23 a press release proudly announced the opening of the new 27 kilometer road that connects Bajos de Chilamate in Sarapiquí, Heredia to Vuelta Kooper in San Carlos, a road that Costa Rica had been waiting on for at least 10 years.

President Luis Guillermo Solís and the Minister of Transportation German Valverde along with other Government authorities and community members all celebrated this achievement. The road goes through the counties of San Carlos, Rio Cuarto and Sarapiquí; it cuts the former route from San Carlos to Limon in 53 kilometers.

The road had a cost of US$52.45 million.

However, the happiness didn’t last long, on Thursday the heavy rainfall during the afternoon hours caused an important flooding in an area of the road. According to construction company Sánchez Carvajal, supervisor of the project, “the floods lasted for 15 minutes and the draining systems worked properly evacuating the water and returning transit to normal”; the Minister of Transportation commented this morning that the incident occurred due to problems with the water drainage system which was blocked, a situation that should never have happened, he also stated that professionals were already doing further investigation and solving the problem.

This Friday, though, the problem occurred again, worse than the day before, several vehicles were trapped in a segment of the road that was completely flooded to the point that firefighters had to intervene to rescue drivers.

We will have to wait for the explanation and solution by the Ministry of Transportation.