Road to mountaintop remains off limits
THE Hobart rivulet underneath the CBD appears to have escaped serious structural damage but Pinnacle Rd will remain closed until the weekend.
As the fallout from Thursday’s freak storm continues, Hobart Lord Mayor Ron Christie said two crews had walked through the rivulet from Barrack St to Campbell St yesterday and the good news for the CBD was that there had been no serious structural damage to the rivulet.
Almost two years ago an underground rivulet wall collapsed, flooding the Myer redevelopment site and other shops in the Cat and Fiddle Arcade.
But last week’s rains appear to have not caused serious destruction to the rivulet.
“There’s minor washed away infrastructure up near Barrack St, but that will be repaired as soon as possible. The next job will be for these crews to walk into the two tunnels at Campbell St,” he said.
Ald Christie said he got a first-hand look at Pinnacle Rd yesterday and was pleased to see that it had not been severely damaged.
But the problem, said Ald Christie, was while the large boulders had been cleared along Pinnacle Rd the engineers were still checking under the road.
“I cannot see the Pinnacle Rd open until at least the weekend, if that, the reason being in terms of public safety, it’s just too risky,” he said.
Ald Christie said the council would apply for Federal Government funding to help alleviate the burden from ratepayers as the repair bill continued to climb into the millions.
“We’ve got a lot of money put aside for our capital works program and we do have money aside for events like this, but not on (this) scale,” he said.
“It’s good to have the grant money there to assist with cleaning up, but we’re looking at higher costs here, we’re looking at tens of millions in terms of infrastructure, and that’s where the Feds, we hope, will be able to help us.”
Kingborough Mayor Steve Wass said the storm impact on that area had been extensive.
“Council staff have been working around the clock to address urgent and unsafe areas, and will continue to focus on restoring roads, stormwater and facilities over the coming weeks.”