Thousands of properties damaged in unprecedented flood
Date published: 12 February 2019
The clean-up is continuing across Townsville with thousands of properties damaged in the unprecedented flood.
As of 2pm Monday, 1879 properties were identified with minor damage, 1009 with moderate damage and 133 with severe damage.
Townsville Local Recovery and Resilience Chair Cr Les Walker said the recovery process is well underway.
“Recovery isn’t something that will happen overnight – the entire city has been impacted in some way and we’ve only just scratched the surface,” Cr Walker said.
“As part of the recovery process we will have a strong focus on mental health because of the widespread effects from these floods.
“We have staff and volunteers from different organisations and the community helping residents and putting the city back together.”
Townsville Local Disaster Management Chair Mayor Jenny Hill said data is showing the flood levels in the Ross River were greater than a 1 in 500 year event.
“The data for the floods is still being analysed but we do know that some areas of the Ross River Dam catchment received rainfall totals that exceeded a 1 in 2000 year rainfall event,” Cr Hill said.
Damage levels are measured by the inundation from flood waters with minor levels classified as less than 25cm, moderate as up to 1m and severe as over 1m of flood water in the property.
All recovery information will be available soon through the Emergency Management Dashboard at disaster.townsville.qld.gov.au.
