FLOOD RECOVERY WORKERS THANKED
‘The Victorian floods remind us of the work required to recover after a wet weather emergency,’ said Mayor Brett Otto.
‘As a community affected by five such events, we are very grateful to not only emergency responders but our own Council workers and associated teams who deal with repairing our roads, often repeatedly.’
Deputy Mayor Gavin Jones regularly addresses Council on the process required to fix roads affected by flooding. ‘Repairs are only temporary to start with, sufficient to just keep the roads open safely. Then we submit funding proposals to the state government. Once approved, Council can move in to permanently fix the roads,’ said Cr Jones.
‘Sometimes residents get frustrated by the length of time this takes. I understand this, but it’s beyond our control. The repeating wet weather incidents and funding processes from other governments mean we cannot fix the roads permanently straight up.’
The latest road repair statistics show that to date approximately $6m has been spent repairing roads across the five weather events. It is estimated that the overall program value across all events is approximately $25m. The estimated Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) completion date is June 2024. Council continues to work closely with the Qld Reconstruction Authority (QRA) who enable the provision of significant financial support from the state and federal governments.
The Mayor and Councillors put their gratitude and appreciation to the emergency repair workers on the public record. ‘We recognise how difficult and challenging this year has been to those workers trying to keep up with the mammoth jobs of repeatedly fixing a road network in major disrepair thanks to wet weather events,’ said Mayor Otto.
‘Our workers have gone above and beyond in their effort to keep roads safe and accessible as much as possible, often in terrible conditions.’
