Repairs to St. John’s Boardwalk to be Completed Today After Collapse Incident

Emergency repair work has begun on the section of the St. John’s Harbour boardwalk that collapsed earlier this week between Redcliffe and Heritage Quays, prompting renewed scrutiny of waterfront safety and congestion management.

The boardwalk collapsed at a time when over 12k tourists were on the island, and reports are that at least two of them were injured and fell into the water.

Port Manager Darwin Telemaque told Antigua.news in an interview on Thursday that engineers and maintenance crews were immediately deployed to stabilize the damaged structure, which collapsed after a large number of people crowded into an area not designed for water taxi loading and passenger traffic.

The collapsed section has now been reinforced as a short-term measure, allowing the Port Authority to reopen part of the boardwalk for pedestrian use only during the busy cruise season.

“We are putting in conditional pieces, which are four additional piles along the boardwalk, which will strengthen it more,” he said.

Telemaque said the Port Authority has assumed full responsibility for the structure, which was previously managed by Quay Properties, and is fast-tracking a comprehensive inspection and redesign initiative to prevent future incidents.

Meanwhile, water taxi operations have been permanently relocated to reduce stress on the boardwalk.

“We are relocating all loading of taxis to Montserrat Terminal. I observed that, and it seems to be workable. It is possible that once we have explored a couple of days’ activity, we can also transit the Montserrat Ferry terminal to the water taxi drop off location so that the indiscriminate use of the boardwalk for loading and offloading ultimately ends,”, he said.

Part of the dock, privately owned and recently repaired, will remain in use by the restoration team, although officials note that some structural adjustments will be required in the future.