Wollongong City Council has redeployed staff from across its civil, maintenance and parks teams to locations across the city in a coordinated and focussed clean-up effort.
The teams will work across today and the weekend to target key community spaces and priority roads in a fast-tracked mop up following the wild weather and flash flooding this week.
“We’ve had ongoing wet weather conditions since November, but Thursday’s weather has seen by far the biggest impact on our community right across the city,” Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said.
“Other recent weather events have been a little more suburb-specific, whereas yesterday’s flash-flooding was widespread, and the storm impacts have been felt from one end of the city to the other.
“It’s early in the mop up at the moment and elements of the repair and rebuild may take some time – particularly given there is further wet weather predicted for next week. But we know we have damage to our roads and we’re working to fast-track repairs where we can, and we have a clean-up effort in full swing that’s targeting community spaces like our beaches where stormwater run-off has damaged access points or there is scarping.”
Over the next few days, staff will target cleaning up debris left around flood areas, silt on roads, barricading areas for safety, clearing gutters, priority potholes and other urgent road repairs, assessing bridges and the clean-up of beaches and park areas. We’ll have all our tar trucks on the road over the weekend targeting priority pothole repairs, and we are assessing areas across the city to review any geotechnical or landslip concerns.
“We know this has been a challenging time for our community and right throughout this ongoing weather we’ve had staff on the ground working to keep out community safe and address areas of concern,” Wollongong City Council General Manager Greg Doyle said.
“We’re very fortunate to have a wealth of knowledge, experience and skills within our Council team. It is during events like this we’re able to draw upon our internal skillsets with our expert geologists providing fast and immediate advice about land slippage, for example, and our skilled civil and parks teams are able to address safety issues on our roads, at beach access points and by removing debris from stormwater assets to ensure they’re working smoothly.
“I’m grateful to all of our staff who have been working hard to keep our community safe during these difficult times and for the work they will do across the weekend.”
Mr Doyle said one of the suburbs that was highly impacted by the weather was West Dapto with damage to Darkes, Cleveland, Reddalls, Bong Bong, Sheaffes and Avondale Roads. Temporary measures were being put in place by staff to support residents in this area.
Council continued to encourage our community to put safety-first if they are moving about the city, or have to clean up around their property.
“The impact of this ongoing wet weather can throw up the unexpected and if people are doing work about their houses and gardens as a result of stormwater run-off please do it carefully,” Cr Bradbery said.
“Local wildlife are also doing it tough so you might find an unexpected snake, spider or other wildlife retreating in your garden.
“We also continue to ask people to avoid our headlands and rock platforms. We know these areas can be unstable – particularly in the current weather conditions – so please keep away from the edges and off the rock platforms themselves. Rock falls can happen suddenly, and we want our community to be safe.
“We’re asking everyone to be vigilant no matter where you are, just in case a footpath or road has been damaged, eroded, or become unstable.”
