For the record. Response to the 2012 floods
The February 2012 storms are etched on the memories of many residents of what is now the Noosa Shire.
Scores of houses and some businesses were inundated. Worst hit were Cooroy, Pomona and Tewantin's Daintree Estate, although a handful of houses around Lake Entrance Boulevard in Noosaville also had water through them.
The February 2012 rain event was extreme, exceeding a 1 in 100 year average recurrence interval. Official rain gauge figures suggest that Cooroy received the biggest deluge ever recorded for the Sunshine Coast, with 181 millimetres dumped on the town in a single hour.
Following the February 2012 storms, the Sunshine Coast Council engaged consultants Projex Partners to investigate the flood events and prepare reports on Cooroy, Pomona, Daintree Estate and the Lake Entrance Boulevard area.
Then Councillor for Division 12, Tony Wellington, organised community meetings for residents in each flooded area in his division. Projex Partners presented their findings at these well attended meetings, and Council's staff were also on hand to answer questions. As a result of these initial public meetings, Flood Reference Groups were established for Cooroy, Pomona and Daintree Estate. These resident representative groups were able to liaise directly with Council staff, and various meetings subsequently took place to keep them abreast of developments.
Before de-amalgamation, the Sunshine Coast Council also completed a series of flood studies for Cooroy, Pomona and Daintree Estate. These used the latest hydraulic modelling systems to analyse available data and come up with various mitigation options. All this work was subsequently made available to Noosa Council in January this year.
Given the nature of the flood studies and the mitigation suggestions they incorporated, Noosa Council sought to verify that work. For Daintree Estate a peer review was undertaken. This has led to even more modelling and analyses. For Cooroy, the State government also carried out its own modelling to determine the impact of their highway infrastructure in the 2012 event.
The results of all this additional investigative work is gradually being presented to the affected communities. Noosa Council has also moved very quickly to develop a specific disaster management plan for residents of Daintree Estate.
Residents of Daintree Estate met on Wednesday July 2nd to hear updated findings and the proposed flood mitigation works. Although a previous meeting considered the disaster management action plan for flooding, this meeting also considered a disaster management plan for bushfire. Ultimately Daintree Estate will be well prepared for any future disaster.
The flood mitigation work for Cooroy, specifically near Ashgrove Drive, should be presented to a public meeting towards the end of July. Noosa Council has successfully coordinated with the State's Department of Transport & Main Roads to have this mitigation work incorporated into the Bruce Highway upgrade.
Flood mitigation work for the Rifle Street area of Pomona is currently being finalised and will be available for public scrutiny very soon.
Noosa Council's highest priority is to deal with potentially life threatening situations, and it is prioritising its flood mitigation work with that in mind.
4 July 2014