Bellingen residents and visitors will be able to see the rise and fall of flood waters livestreamed via the council’s website when real-time monitoring is installed at four key bridges in the shire.
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Lavender’s Bridge, which joins north Bellingen to the main part of town, and bridges at Thora, Kalang and Brierfield will receive the new high-tech system, which will also automatically activate electronic road closure signs.
Council’s Deputy General Manager Operations Matt Fanning said he had implemented similar technology in in the Gulf of Carpentaria a few years ago.
“We did sign-activated road closures for the whole of the Gulf area. It’s 1000km from one end to the other and you don’t want tourists getting halfway along and then realising they can’t go any further and might not be able to go back,” Mr Fanning said.
Although Bellingen Shire doesn’t have an annual wet season like Far North Queensland, Mr Fanning said the shire typically has the most number of floods in NSW.
Bellingen Shire has been declared a natural disaster zone 15 times since 2001 because of major floods that caused significant damage to infrastructure.
“Floods are part of who we are here,” said Mayor Dominic King. “It it will be great to have a system so people know in real-time what’s going on. Maybe they’ll have to stay home and wait for that water to drop. And it does rise and fall quickly.”
Matt Fanning said the project would feed into the Bellingen My Road Info website.
“During the March 2017 flood, the My Road Info App was installed about 800 times and viewed about 8,500 times,” he said. “That demonstrates there’s a need for accurate and timely information.”
On Thursday, Minister for Racing Paul Toole joined Member for Oxley Melinda Pavey and Mayor Dominic King to announce funding for the remote flood monitoring infrastructure.
There is $65,000 from the NSW government that has been matched dollar-for-dollar by Bellingen Shire Council, making a total of $130,000.
Ms Pavey said the project, which is expected to be completed in the next 12 months, will help protect lives and property during floods.
“We can have extraordinary amounts of rain, up to 800mm drop in a couple of hours, and it can be devastating to communities. It’s important from a safety perspective – people can look and see what the river’s doing, whether it’s over the bridge or whether it’s coming up.
“And this information will be available to all emergency services personnel, whether that be SES or police.”
Mr Toole said the project was one of 26 across NSW funded from the latest round of the Clubgrants category 3 infrastructure program.
“More than $50 million in Clubgrants infrastructure funding is being provided in the current term of government for projects across emergency preparedness, sport and recreation, and arts and culture,” Mr Toole said.
“These grants are funded through a rebate on the state’s registered clubs’ gaming machines to reinvest profits back into community projects.”
Mr Toole said the NSW Government was pleased to fund modern and safe facilities to protect communities during emergencies.