Torquay residents allowed to return home after dam collapse fears
After a weekend away from home, Torquay residents have been allowed to return after fears of a catastrophic dam collapse forced them to flee in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Victoria
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More than
100 Torquay residents have been given the green light to return to their homes after being evacuated in the early hours of Saturday morning over fears a nearby dam would collapse.
Those whose homes were affected were told in an update on Sunday afternoon that they wouldn’t have to spend another night away from home after SES officials deemed the site safe, allowing residents to return from 5pm.
After spending a night in the Rydges hotel in Geelong, Pintail Dr residents Angie and Gary Earnshaw were looking forward to returning.
“We’re grateful that the council were able to put us up in the hotel, they’ve also booked us in for Sunday night in case something happens but it’ll be good to be able to sleep in our own bed again,” Ms Earnshaw said.
Bree Keltie, who also lives on the street, was pleased to be able to return home with her partner Trent and their daughter Willow after a “hectic” few days.
“We’re lucky that we could stay with my parents and didn’t have to go to a hotel, especially since our daughter is only 15 months old,” she said.
“It’s fine staying with family but there’s no place like home.”
Water is still being removed from the dam and work will continue throughout the night to lower levels even further.
The source of the leak is yet to be determined, with dam safety engineers and technical advisors set to carry out a detailed assessment on the structure on Monday once water level has been reduced.
Many of the homes of Pintail Dr are located just metres away from the dam.
When asked by the Herald Sun if there were any concerns over the proximity of the houses to the dam before the Surf Coast Shire Council granted permission for the estate to be built, the council would not comment.
“Council’s focus is to work with the incident management team and support affected residents to return to their homes as soon as possible,” Surf Coast Shire Council’s acting CEO Anne Howard responded.
Crews worked through the night at the Pintail Drv facility over the weekend, with 10 CFA crews pumping water from the dam while Victoria Police spent the night door knocking 41 properties in the area, warning 109 residents to evacuate their homes.
SES Operations Officer Ian Carlton told the Herald Sun that crews were first alerted to an issue with the dam at around 5.30pm on Friday.
The private dam, which holds recycled water for use on neighbouring farm land, is around 250m long, 50m wide and holds 180 megalitres of water.
“It was at high risk of catastrophic failure, which is a sudden let go with all that water coming out,” he said.
“It was decided at about 1.30am that we would undertake evacuations so at around 2am we started doorknocking with Victoria Police and SES.”
“We’ve had CFA tankers in here taking the water out overnight and we’ve installed two high power transmission pumps that are pumping out about 340 litres a second.
“We’re trying to get the dam down from 180 megalitres to about 80 megalitres, with the dam engineers making an assessment and going through to try and determine what’s the safest level without causing any more issues.”
He added: “It’s been a huge emergency services effort. We work as one and it really showed last night, all the agencies got together and worked well.
Mr Carlton said the cause of the issue is still under investigation.
“There’s nothing to show what’s caused the leak at this stage. It’s a dam to store recycled water for the farm, so there’s no rain water that’s going to enter from rivers or streams – there’s no issue with the rain over the week.”
Incident controller Alistair Drayton said in an online meeting with residents that SES will need to reduce the depth of the water in the dam by two metres before it is at a safe level to allow people to return home.
Homeowners and tenants will be able to return on a “case-by-case basis” to their homes in the meantime to collect necessary items, such as medication.
The Surf Coast Shire offered to arrange a place to stay for residents who were unable to secure alternative accommodation with family or friends for tonight.
Those told to evacuate their homes were advised to leave as much furniture and electrical appliances on tables and countertops as they could in case of flooding.
“There was a concern for a number of properties that were really close to the dam. We kept really good contact with those residents to keep them up to date with what was happening,” he said.
“We advised them to follow the ‘lift it, lock it, leave it’ rule — so to leave anything like TVs or other furniture on top of tables or kitchen benches and leave.”
Local man Daniel Moore became concerned when water in his garden, that he thought was from rain, wasn’t draining away in recent days.
Mr Moore and his family are among 41 houses who have been told to evacuate the area.
“We were surprised with the number of emergency crew that were here last night and the increasing urgency as the hours went on,” he said on Saturday.
We were less panicked until it got serious and all the emergency crew [started arriving].
“We got told an evacuation would be likely at about 8pm or 9pm, so it became a case of not if but when.
“Then at about 2.30am, we got told to get out.”
Mr Moore said that his family have had to stay between two relatives’ houses in Torquay while they wait to be allowed back into their home.
He was hopeful that the leak in the dam hasn’t caused any serious structural damage to his home.
“I suppose there’s the risk of that but we just have to wait until that’s all tested. There’s the risk of foundation, slab damage and everything like that,” he said.
“We’re planning that it could only be for a night or it could be for a week – who knows. We’re focusing on today and tomorrow and then we’ll see once we know more.”
Residents Killian and Alice O’Rourke opened up about their shock at being woken by emergency services in the dead of night and being told to leave their home.
The couple, along with their young sons Seamus and Connor, were told to pack up their belongings and leave as soon as possible at 2.30am.
When the couple first heard the knock on their door, they feared that their home was being broken into.
“It was scary. It’s my 40th today so we were out for food and a few beers last night — to get the knock on the door at 2.30am, we didn’t know what was going on,” Mr Rourke said.
The Torquay Tropicana Motel has taken in many of the affected residents, while others have chosen to stay with family or friends.
Two properties have been affected by flooding so far.
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