Northern beaches flood: Hundreds of properties report water damage as clean-up intensifies
As the big clean-up from Tuesday’s northern beaches ‘rain bomb’ intensifies, more than 260 property owners report flood damage.
Manly
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At least 260 properties on the northern beaches have reported flood damage after Tuesday’s wild weather.
And authorities are expecting more households and businesses from Manly to Elanora Heights will contact them for help after this week’s “rain bomb”.
Northern Beaches Council has already received close to 330 requests for it to collect flood damaged waste since the fierce thunderstorm dumped massive rainfall across the area.
Council staff have knocked on the doors of more than 2000 homes in the worst hit areas to hear concerns ranging from the removal of water-damaged furniture, carpet, and food to help with having the power put back on.
The council’s waste contractor URM has been collecting damaged household goods in low lying areas of Manly, North Manly, Narrabeen, North Narrabeen and Balgowlah.
Council crews are also removing material in suburbs including Dee Why, Elanora Heights and Freshwater.
The council is also helping remove soil, vegetation and others debris across roads from 22 landslips while a clean up of storm debris on beaches and around the lagoons is continuing.
Flood damage to sections of the public golf courses, including Warringah Golf Club at Manly were floodwater smashed down fencing, is still being repaired.
The council has also received reports of more than 200 potholes across the local government area and now has about a dozen repair crews in the field. Major routes such as Pittwater, Warringah and Barrenjoey roads have been given priority ahead of smaller backstreets.
“Requests from the community are still being logged,” the council said on its Facebook page. “These are prioritised and attended to as soon as crews are available.”
The official clan up continues as locals pitch in to help themselves.
One of the worst hit streets was Nareen Pde at North Narrabeen where two massive landslides at cliffside properties wiped out front yards.
Dave Parker returned home from work to be confronted by a massive pile of mud.
Mr Parker said his wife and two small children were alerted by a neighbour.
“There’s normally a nice garden and steps going up (the hill) but anyway, now we’ve just got to stabilise the land and rebuild.
“We share a driveway which basically goes all the way up to five other houses that share that driveway, so we have to get it fixed as soon as possible before we move onto anything else.”
The worst hit parts of Manly were Rolfe St and Alexander St, where firefighters helped residents strip out wet carpet and ruined belongings.
Patrick Burke noticed water in his backyard, but not too long later it was rising up through the floorboards.
“We were here in 1992 and the water came to the other side of the floor joist here. This time it actually came up through the floor,” he said.
“I spoke to some of the neighbours and they had the same thing. There was so much water and the pressure of it coming in just pushed it up through the floor.
“The first time I knew was when the cat started jumping up and I thought: ‘What’s wrong with the cat?’.”
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