Flooding dangers revealed

Wollongong is very ill-prepared for a flood disaster and riddled with “unique and serious problems”, according to engineering experts who visited the local area last week.

Executive Member of Floodplain Management Authorities and Consulting Engineer, Wilton Boyd said that Wollongong’s unique environment – buffered between the ocean and the mountains – made it prone to dangerous flash flooding, a problem which stands to be exacerbated with global warming and the climate’s emergence from a decade long drought cycle.

Mr Boyd said it was safe to describe the residents of one Fairy Meadow street in particular – which was first ravaged by floods in 1998 – as “sitting ducks”.

“Wollongong has some unique and very severe problems,” said Mr Boyd, who was in town last week for the 48th Annual Floodplain Management Authorities Conference.

“People have been lulled into a false sense of security because we are coming out of a 10-year drought cycle - but if we look at what happened in the 1940s when we were coming out of a similar cycle – by the mid 1950s there was huge flooding.

“And climate change says that rainfall will intensify – so floods will get higher and the drainage systems that we’ve have in place now will no longer be adequate.”

The Annual Floodplain Management Authorities Conference ran from Tuesday, February 26 to Friday, February 29 at Novotel Northbeach.

The conference itinerary included a field trip to a number of sites affected by storms that lashed the region in August 1998, including parts of Fairy Meadow, Mt Ousley, Balgownie and Bulli.

Wollongong City Council Senior Floodplain Management Engineer, Pas Silveri, said one of the worst affected streets has been the focus of a Voluntary Purchase Scheme initiated by council – although some of the properties have yet to be bought under the scheme.

Key-note speakers at last week’s conference included Marshall Frech - director of the Flood Safety Project and the producer of the Emmy-nominated documentaries Flash Flood Alley and The Water’s Edge; and US flood expert Al Goodman, who worked on both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Floyd.