More about Floods

The river has peaked, it hasn't rained again so it's all calm again for the minute! We just went for a drive & while the water is way higher than it was yesterday at a similar time, it is also starting to drop. There are still 2 roads open (one to 4WD only). but by tomorrow it should drop quite a bit.


Rail Bridge on the road out to Burren Junction - this is after you go across the bridge.

Lagoon Bridge

Other side of the Lagoon Bridge - this is where the water cuts off the road in that direction - once you get past this water the road is clear (well some of the floodways might have some water in them, but you can get to Narrabri).

Vera's Leap (been closed for about a week)

Mum took these photos during the day today. Her camera is way better than mine! A fact that became glaringly obvious when I looked at her photos & mine in the same folder on the computer. I've got a few more to upload but I'll leave them until tomorrow.

We are still waiting for some heavy rainfall that has been predicted - actually we've been waiting all week as it was supposed to rain over the weekend as well. Looking at all the weather sites, it looks like Friday might be the day. By then most of this water will have gone downstream.

What's become very obvious is the lack of a central point of information. I noticed after yesterdays debarcle, there is now a phone number for information listed on http://www.narrabriweather.net/ I don't listen to the radio so maybe it's been promoted there, but it wasn't on the SES website the last time I looked. Oh & by the way powers that be, not all of us can sit next to the radio listening all day. Most of us generally access computers & the internet these days to get the information we need. One collegue who rang the council to find out when the road would be closed was told to listen to the radio - ah not possible when on class!

http://www.narrabriweather.net/ has had the most accurate information especially about road closures & provided the direct link to the river levels in Wee Waa & Narrabri - also Boggabri before the river peaked there. It has been a source of referance for me constantly over the last couple of days - every time someone asked I would tell them to go to that site.

Other than this site (unless there's one hidden somewhere) there is no other reliable source of info on the net. The SES website is a joke. Yes there is the information about how to keep safe in a flood. Yes I did notice that they had made an attempt today to try & put some more relevent information on it. But it was, in my opinion too little too late. With all the resources the SES has at it's disposal, surely they could have had someone on the job of updating the webpage with current information. On Sat or Sunday for instance the headline had Wee Waa & Pilliga isolated. The story was disjointed & changed from being about Wee Waa & Pilliga to talking about Wagga Wagga.

Why isn't there something like the RFS site (yes I may be biased) which summarises incidents in a short point form.  http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=683 (scroll down to see the current RFS incidents I know there are probably more complicating factors with flooding but come on, there has to be a better way.

I also noticed just now on the entry for today http://www.ses.nsw.gov.au/events/17422.html that the SES isn't responsible for road closures the council is. Yet when you ring the council to find out if a road is to be closed (for instance say the main road out of town) they tell you to ring the SES!

Ok, I should stop whinging about this. Just one last little whinge? In the paper it had the Controller for the area saying people shouldn't be panicing. Well no one was panicing before 10am yesterday (that's when the emergency messages went off). And you'll find no one is panicing now - though might be a good idea to check the stories that are going to air on TV & radio - my sister heard (in Sydney) this morning a number of times that Wee Waa was going to be evacuated. Fortunately we had been talking to her so she knew it wasn't the case.

Someone needs to understand that not all areas flood the same - same as not all bushfires are the same.





Comments

  1. We've had so many phone calls, texts and emails from family and friends around the country who have heard we were being evacuated. We even had one from Slovenia!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It ended up more than just a 'simple' misunderstanding. There were also apparently news reports yesterday saying 1700 had been evacuated. It's crazy.

    ReplyDelete

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