North Queensland floods: Hinchinbrook mayor lambasts public sandbag theft
A North Queensland mayor says he is disgusted after a supply of sandbags left for the public ahead of potential floods were allegedly stolen.
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Hinchinbrook Mayor Ramon Jayo has been left disgusted after an entire supply of empty sandbags left out for the public ahead of an expected severe weather system were allegedly stolen by a single individual.
“It’s pretty disappointing that there is an element in our community who work against everything we try and do,” he said on Friday morning.
“For instance, 100 (empty) sandbags were stolen from our (council) car park last night, there was no sand taken … it was simply bags.”
Mr Jayo said residents concerned about potential flooding to their homes had arrived at the car park, one of four official council sandbag sites, to discover there were no hessian bags to fill with supplied sand.
He said the incident had been captured on CCTV and the details forwarded to Ingham Police.
“Obviously they needed the sandbags for some bloody thing but that is not the intent.”
The popular three-term mayor said council staff also provided a limited amount of pre-filled bags for the elderly or disabled.
“But what we are finding is that the young and able-bodied are simply helping themselves to the pre-filled bags.”
Mr Jayo also urged residents to take only as many bags as were needed.
“We can’t just keep leaving out bag after bag after bag because people are stockpiling those bags.”
He added that it was “ludicrous” to stockpile the hessian bags “as they don’t keep for very long, particularly when filled with wet sand”.
“They will fill apart, they will not store in your shed, so only take what you need and have regard for other people.”
Mr Jayo, the head of the Hinchinbrook Local Disaster Management Groups (LDMG), said it was officially “leaning forward” after the Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for the North Tropical Coast stretching from south of Cairns to just north of Bowen.
The expansive area includes Tully, Cardwell, Palm Island, Hinchinbrook, Townsville, Ayr and Home Hill.
He said the shire was “bracing for torrential, monsoonal rain” but just how Hinchinbrook would be impacted depended on where the rain fell.
While heavy localised heavy rainfall causes surface flooding throughout the shire, of more concern is potential heavy falls in the upper catchment areas of the Herbert River, which can cause much more significant flooding in Ingham and the Lower Herbert, including Halifax.
“Thankfully, at the moment, we’ve been spared any heavy rain in our upper catchment, which is the problem area for us,” Mr Jayo said.
“So while we have been experiencing heavy rains on our coastal reaches (over the last three weeks), which basically causes a lot of inundation of low-lying areas … we’ve had nothing up in the upper catchment and I really hope that continues.”
Mr Jayo said the rainfall that BOM was predicting “could be quite troublesome for us if it does fall up in the Tablelands, particularly given the already saturated conditions down here.”
“Our drainage systems are at capacity so anything more is just going to add to the equation and unfortunately it is quite reasonable to expect that we will experience flooding … but as to the degree, no one can say at this stage.”
He said although there would be ample warning for potential flooding in the lower catchment, “but the fact of the matter is that people should be ready now”.
“We’ve been telling people that there is an event coming, so hopefully they’ve got their own plans in place,” he said.
“The best way to be prepared for these event is to be prepared.”
Mr Jayo also urged residents to have adequate supplies of food and medications but be considerate of others.
“We don’t need you to buy 16 loaves of bread and we don’t need you to buy 40 litres of fuel because at the end of the day, you don’t need that much.”
He said he was in close consultation with Woolworths and Coles to ensure adequate supplies.
“There is no way you are going to run out of supplies for any long period of time because supply chains for our supermarkets are good.”
The mayor said the Hinchinbrook LDMG was also prepared with the assistance of Ingham Police who had rostered on more staff and the Queensland State Emergency Service (SES) deployed in Halifax.
“We are pretty well resourced from a rescue and emergency response perspective.”
Mr Jayo said Hinchinbrook Shire Council staff were also on alert as they were during any potential emergency scenario.
“People who need assistance will be able to call the normal council number, 47764600, and that will start communications with all the emergency response providers.”
“We are ready to go, we’ve got all bases covered, and now we just need to wait and see what the weather brings us.”
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