Mallacoota’ s drains simply couldn’t cope with the deluge it copped on Saturday evening with local SES volunteers called out to 11 calls for assistance as rains flooded properties.
SES controller Mallacoota, Leo Op den Brouw, said around 70 millilitres fell on the town in just 30 to 40 minutes.
“We had 11 call outs, with nine of those all coming in at once,” he said.
“Seven volunteers were available, with some of the others having to deal with their own flooding issues.”
The rain started at around 5pm and by 10.30pm just over 91mm had fallen on the sodden town.
“At one point visibility was down to about 10 metres,” Mr Op den Brouw said.
“This is normal for Queensland, but not here.”
Mr Op den Brouw said the drains were the main problem.
“A lot of the drains were blocked with sticks and debris before the rain, but even then they’re just not designed for this kind of deluge,” he said.
“Especially the table drains. They’re designed these days for 20-year floods, not 40-50 years like this one was.”
One resident in Vista Drive said she has to contend with “mud up to 10 inches thick” in her court from the building site over the road that became a mudslide with the rain. Her four-week-old carpets inside are also ruined.
“It’s tough, the week before Christmas. People are having visitors arrive and now they’ve got saturated carpets downstairs. One person had to find somewhere else to stay. Now there are people waiting at this busy time to hear from insurance companies before they start ripping up their carpets.” Mr Op den Brown said.
He said there’s now a big clean up job for the town.
