Graphic photographs in all of today’s press reveal the amount of damage suffered by the nation’s highway system. The major thoroughfare between Santo Domingo and the Cibao Valley was cut off when the Acapulco River flooded, eating away the river banks that supported the bridge at El Ranchito, La Vega. According to El Caribe another four bridges were affected in Nagua, Constanza and San Francisco de Macoris. In Monte Cristi, 2,400 people were evacuated from low-lying areas around the Yaque del Norte River. Authorities attributed the high waters to the opening of the floodgates at the Tavera Dam. In Santiago, 1,045 houses were affected by the local flooding. Houses in Maria Trinidad Sanchez, Sanchez Ramirez and Duarte provinces were also hard hit by flooding. As well as the bridge on the Duarte Highway, another bridge that connects El Pino with the towns of Fantino and Cotui was also damaged. A Ministry of Public Works representative said that it would be a week before the bridge on the Duarte Highway would be repaired, “if the rains let us work.” The spokesman, Mayobanex Escoto, said that bridges in Azua, Elias Pina, Nagua, El Seibo and three other unspecified cases, also needed repairs. According to the National Hydraulic Resources Institute (INDRHI), the floodgates at the Tavera Dam were opened wider, increasing the release of water from 150 cubic meters per second to 250 cubic meters per second.
The National Meteorological Office is maintaining its flood warnings across the northeast of the country and along the Yuna River Valley. A weather alert is in effect for the north, south and the southwest of the Dominican Republic as a result of a stationary low-pressure ridge over the south coast of the country.