Mayor reflects on Toowoomba flood
MAYOR Paul Antonio can still clearly remember the death and devastation the 2011 Toowoomba floods caused and the recovery required to bring the city back from disaster.
Deputy Mayor of the Toowoomba Regional Council at the time, Cr Antonio said the region had learned some serious lessons about its readiness to natural disasters.
“The first thing is we need to remember the tragic loss of January 10, when we lost Donna Rice and her son Jordan,” he said.
“We spent in the order of $247 million to repair the road damage that occurred.
“When we reflect on that event, we’ve had some very serious learnings, and that will allow us to respond better.
“Out of necessity, we had to learn a lot from that particular time.”
In the years since the disaster, Cr Antonio and the council had pushed for flood mitigation works funding, most particularly the culverts of East and West Creeks along James St.
The council had also secured funding for two new detention basins for Ballin Dr and Garnet Lehmann parks.
He said the upgrades to James St and the detention basins, which have finally been funded, would allow water to move through the city faster and help prevent the flooding of the city again.
“We’ve done a lot of infrastructure projects that are important, of course we’ve had state and federal support along the way,” Cr Antonio said.
“The detention basins caused a lot of grief in the community (at the time), but I’m not hearing too much in recent times.
“We’ve also been upgrading the culverts for East and West Creek on James St. We believe it’s important for connectivity.”
The council also invested heavily in more sophisticated emergency alert systems, which Cr Antonio said would give residents more time to get out.
“One of the things we didn’t have last time is the flood early warning systems, where there’s a significant predictive element and we’re able to predict where the water may end up, taking into account the soil, the intensity of the rainfall, and those systems are invaluable, when it comes to managing an event,” he said.
“We’ve put significant money into the flood recovery, and there were more than one million work hours put into it.
“We have undertaken one of Australia’s most comprehensive flood study projects, and that’s being used in our future planning.
“I think we’d handle a similar event quite differently and be far better informed. Structurally, we’re in a better position, as well as strategically.”
As for remaining flood mitigation works, Cr Antonio said he wanted to see upgrades to culverts around the northern end of the CBD to allow for better water flow.
“There will be quite a bit of work happening in the East Creek master plan, which is an upgrade to the Neil St culvert,” he said.
“Replacement and the upgrade of the intersection of Neil St and the New England Highway will be required.
“We need to provide maximum water flow to allow water to get away.”