Cost of February 2020 flood damage revealed by Toowoomba Regional Council at $26 million

The Toowoomba Regional Council has revealed the estimate damage bill from the February 2020 flood event.

The Toowoomba Regional Council has estimated the February 2020 flood event caused $26 million in damages.

The damage bill of the February 2020 flood event across the Toowoomba region has been estimated at $26 million by the council.

The full repair costs were mentioned at the Toowoomba Regional Council’s committee meetings on Tuesday morning.

According to infrastructure services general manager Mike Brady, the flood event caused 3600 instances of damage across more than 1200 sites and on about 570 roads across the region.

The council endorsed a proposal to commit a further $4.5 million to its capital works program to cover the replacement of multiple repair projects, including replacing and upgrading culverts as well as gravel resheeting.

Mr Brady said the council had applied for funding support to help with the repair costs through submissions to the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, which is administered by the Queensland Reconstructive Authority.

“Under the guidelines that are set by the Federal and State Governments, we can only get funding for improvement to the asset to its pre-flood condition,” he said.

“This report looks at the opportunities of what could be done.

“We’ve put in 14 submissions, four of which have been approved.”

Mr Brady said the repairs would be stretched out over several years, with the majority of the costs able to be refunded through the DRFA.