Remember waking up early on the 6th of April this year?
Let me jog your memory. On that day, shortly before daybreak, after 24 hours of steady rain, the Illawarra was smashed by torrential rains which created havoc on our roads, washed away at least one house, flooded many suburban homes, created havoc on our roads and prompted hundreds of calls for help to the SES. Like so many others, in the pre-dawn we joined our neighbours in the street sandbagging, desperately trying to stop the deluge again entering our property.
The official rainfall figures were 250mm for the Dombarton Loop, 240mm for Mt Pleasant above Balgownie, and 231mm for Russell Vale Colliery. That’s closing in on one foot of rain in the old scale, much of it falling in one crazy hour. The impact was devastating.
Hundreds of tonnes of debris was strewn across our streets, gardens, parks and beaches. Businesses were awash and unable to reopen. Wollongong and the Illawarra was described as a war zone as the massive clean-up effort swung into action. Many who had been warning council for years that our city wasn’t prepared for a major flood were proven right, and it was a miracle no lives were lost. The flash flood of 6 April was a wake-up call for our elected councillors and their staff. Or was it?
Just three days before that horrendous flood event, which some victims describe as the worst in at least a quarter of a century, Council’s expert central area floodplain risk management committee signed off on detailed studies and plans for the catchments which take in Fairy, Cabbage and Allens Creeks. These lengthy, data-rich reports paint a frightening picture of the very real risk facing thousands of Wollongong homeowners. Its findings may have prompted our outgoing Lord Mayor to tell the Illawarra Mercury earlier this month "this is a dangerous place to live". And the flood report makes a strong point that things will only get more dangerous in the future due to climate change, with predictions of a 20% increase in flooding levels and a 40% increase in the damage bill when we go under water in a future which looks increasingly bleak.
The studies found right now in the Fairy and Cabbage Creek catchment alone (taking in Fairy Meadow, Balgownie, North Wollongong, Keiraville and Gwynneville), a one-in-five-year flood event would cause $11.6m damage. The damage bill rising to $46.3m in a one in a 100-year flood. The study said the cost of implementing all of the flood prevention measures in the catchment was put at $14.3m. Seems to make sense in my view, if Council invested less than $15m from its annual $100m capital works budget it could at the very least take care of people living in this significant part of the city in a one in five-year flood event. The studies also show that in a one in a 100-year flood event nearly 500 properties would be flooded above floor level in the catchment.
The studies present a stark, realistic, sobering picture of the big challenges we face. The studies do present answers but perhaps not the answers our battle-weary flood victims were hoping for. In fact, in its wisdom, council has decided not to support the majority of solutions listed in the study.
When the studies assessed flood prevention projects based on their "hydraulic" and "economic" benefits to the city, most fell short. A line was ruled through most based on being "not feasible from a purely economic perspective". As such, most flood mitigation measures were assessed to be of relatively low priority.
Why is our Council treating flood management and protection as economists and not looking at the very real human impacts every time we flood? What price does our Council put on the human suffering; the impact on the mental and physical health of those affected; the time and cost it takes to clean up the mess; the exorbitant insurance costs for those able to get insurance; and the stress and disruption to lives?
More than four long months passed from the time council’s flood committee passed the study, and the last meeting of the full Council earlier this month signing off on the same study without amendment. What does this mean? It means there isn’t a single mention in the 700-plus pages of the study of the massive storm and flood event that occurred on 6 April 2024. It means the study is incomplete and out of date at the very minute our Council unanimously voted to agree that this study will serve this community well for the years ahead.
Surely in the four months that passed since that catastrophic flood in early April council staff could have provided an updated report, capturing key data and giving the people of Wollongong confidence that our decision-makers have the most up-to-date information to base their decision-making on. This is supposed to be what the bureaucrats call a ‘living document’ – not something that’s already partially dead in the water.
Floods must be treated as more than an inconvenience. They are disruptive and for many they are devastating. The community is expected to continuously update their flood preparedness. Yet the outgoing council appears to have chosen to ignore the wake-up call that the April floods gave us. They do this at their, and our, peril. The community deserves an explanation. Why has our Council taken what appears to be ‘the easy way out’ by not rolling up its sleeves by urgently updating this very significant study. And why are they not putting a much greater share of Council’s overall infrastructure budget into flood prevention? Is it not Council’s number one priority serving to protect its most vulnerable people and keeping us all safe?
We have farewelled the Council that decided it was a wise decision not to insist that the major 6 April flood event be captured in the latest study. With the election on 14 September, we get the opportunity to start afresh. But that can only happen if those we elect take a whole new approach to flood prevention, start asking the hard questions of staff, and allocate significantly more money from Council’s coffers rather than waiting for a flood tragedy which might finally provide the access we’re not currently getting to state and federal dollars. But at what cost if we all go under in the process?