Noosa Council is backing latest emergency push to end Teewah mobile ‘dead spot’
A towing operator backs calls for an extra transmission tower to end a notorious communications black spot north of Teewah village.
Noosa
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Rainbow Beach towing operator Carolyn Elder said a dead spot extending to the Leisha Track at Double Island Point was forcing people to call in rollovers and other emergencies using a pay phone at the Freshwater camping ground.
Noosa Council with the backing of the local disaster management group including police, ambulance and coastguards is lobbying Telstra to fund an extra transmission tower as soon as possible.
"Absolutely it would be beneficial for people," Ms Elder said.
"We had those men that drowned on Teewah last year and you've got to travel for a distance just to raise the alarm.
"We often have people who have to either call us for help from the Freshwater public pay phone, or they have to go right up to the other side of the Leisha Track.
Ms Elder, who instigated the Dob In A Teewah Tool Facebook page to help police catch reckless four-wheel drivers, said there had been more rollovers in this area in the past six months than in the previous three years.
She also supports the police operation Sandstorm launched this week along the Cooloola beach strip, which includes remote aerial surveillance to catch cowboy behaviour such as fishtailing.
The latest emergency call-outs included a man falling from the tray of a ute doing burnouts in the sand while another man not wearing a seatbelt was thrown from a ute last weekend.
"I love the fact that police are out there with drones - it's fantastic," Ms Elder said.
Ms Elder said hoons posting videos of their dangerous driving on social media could lead to the authorities shutting down the beaches for everyone.
"It's not harmless fun," she said.
"People are getting hurt, it's getting a really bad reputation and it's going to damage things for everyone else.
"Rollovers are business, but we don't want that kind of business - we don't want to see the carnage that has been happening."
Noosa disaster management group chair Mayor Clare Stewart said she was "fully supportive" of having assistance provided by Telstra or NBN to eradicate the black spot.
"Clearly in an emergency one of the most fundamental things is communications," Ms Stewart said.
The council has approached Telstra to sponsor a funding bid for a Teewah tower through the Federal Government's Mobile Black Spot Program.
Applications for an allocated $80 million in the program's round six close towards the end of June.
Other Teewah emergencies included:
- In early December last year two fathers camping drowned after they rushed to save their children from a rip.
- Last October a man's body was pulled from the water near Double Island Point after he failed to return from a swim.
- An 18-year-old passenger last August was killed when a four-wheel drive rolled and he was thrown from the vehicle.
Originally published as Emergency push to end Teewah mobile 'dead spot'
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