Maggie still mopping up
MAGNETIC Island residents are continuing the big clean up after the floods.
State Emergency Services regional manager Daryl Camp said while the island received a large amount of rain, they fared better than hard-hit Townsville suburbs.
“They didn’t get riverine flooding … it was run off from the hills and so on,” he said.
Mr Camp said the SES responded to 67 jobs from January 27, mainly sandbag requests, leaking roofs and trees falling down.
“They get a lot of surface flooding … run offs from the rain … they had quite a few jobs over in Horseshoe Bay,” Mr Camp said.
Trees came down on houses in Arcadia and Nelly Bay, with many calls for help coming from elderly residents.
The flooding was handled by Magnetic Island’s SES team of 20 people, no other SES personnel had to be brought in.
“It appears they’ve stopped water getting into houses in most cases … the situation was handled by the crew they had on the island,” Mr Camp said.
Nelly Bay resident Michael Schmidt said he knew how to deal with adverse events.
“I’m used to dealing with this sort of thing … a lot of the locals are … they bunker down,” Mr Schmidt said.
“But this one was a bit extraordinary, it kept coming.”
Mr Schmidt said Horseshoe Bay Rd received a lot of flooding.
“I live on the creek bank so I cop a lot of street water through here. I’ve have had to maintain that constantly since 1978.
“The whole issue has confirmed that the major roads in the bays have a secondary purpose – to drain the suburb properly.”
Local councillor AnnMaree Greaney said council crews were sent to Magnetic Island to inspect and assess damage to infrastructure.
“Repair works will be prioritised to fix access issues on roads throughout the island,” Cr Greaney said.
“Council crews will continue the repair and recovery effort across the community and we will notify island residents when major works commence.”