‘Minor’ alert on tragic morning

A MAJOR flood warning for the River Ouse would have been “more prudent” on the day a man was taken and killed by the river during Tasmania’s worst flooding in 40 years, new documents reveal.

Instead a minor flood warning had been issued for the river on June 6 last year which was only upgraded to “major” at 12.10pm — four hours after Trevor Foster, whose body has never been found, was swept away.

According to emails obtained by the Mercury under Right to Information laws, Hydro Tasmania contacted the Bureau of Meteorology before 4am on June 6 about flood risks at Ouse.

The email shows at 10am Hydro began making several phones calls to the BOM “to reiterate that [a] major flood warning is more prudent than the minor warning they had in place”.

At 10.45am Hydro was informed by authorities Mr Foster, 81, uncle of champion wood chopper David Foster, had gone missing at Ouse several hours earlier.

At 12.10pm the BOM upgraded its warning for the Ouse to major, more than 12 hours after it had issued its initial minor flood warning.

A Hydro spokeswoman said it was the BOM’s responsibility to issue flood warnings.

“BOM are the scientific experts responsible for forecasting and weather warnings,’’ the Hydro spokeswoman said.

“Hydro Tasmania provides real-time flow data to help inform BOM’s decisions.’’

The bureau has previously come under fire for its response to the floods, which took three lives and decimated farming communities costing an estimated $180 million.

In a submission to the State Government’s $400,000 Flood Review, the Latrobe Council said warnings it received in the lead up to the flood were “severely deficient” and gave no hint a natural disaster of national significance was about to hit.

Yesterday the bureau said flood warnings were issued in line with the Tasmanian Service Level Specification.

“The bureau continues to co-operate with the Flood Review Team and its inquiry,” a spokeswoman said.

In its submission to the flood review, the bureau said lack of accurate river level data because of gauge outages resulted in a reduction in its service level at the River Ouse.

The flood review is due to hand down its findings in June.

Repeated attempts to find Mr Foster’s body have been unsuccessful.