Road recovery continues in Bourke Shire

Bourke Shire Council continues with its recovery efforts to repair several key Outback roads damaged by recent heavy rains and prolonged flooding, with a focus on restoring areas around Wanaaring and Hungerford.

Bourke Shire Council General Manager, Leonie Brown, said the damage across the shire was some of the worst seen in decades and would take considerable time and resources to address.

“The Wanaaring Road is back open to normal traffic, which is great news,” Mrs Brown said. “But the Hungerford Road is certainly still a struggle.”

Recent flooding has left major sections of the Hungerford Road impassable, with deep silt and water-logged soil complicating recovery efforts.

“Council has a contractor out on site digging the silt out of holes that would swallow a good sized table top truck,” Mrs Brown said.

“Council is setting up a work camp on the Hungerford Road and is seeking to get the road back to providing some level of access, but it is going to take time – it unfortunately won’t happen quickly.”

Remote area residents and workers remain cut off or are facing significantly longer detours. Mrs Brown said that alternative routes are also impacted.

“The detours to residents in the area may be 60 or 70 kilometres for some, with others having to travel even further, they are quite isolated. Mooleyarrah Road remains closed as well, and other roads still have water over them – Council can’t get access to these roads to assess them”

The situation is unprecedented for the shire, where flooding events are not uncommon, but rarely to this extent.

“It’s unprecedented due to the significant flooding that came down the river systems from South West Queensland,” Mrs Brown said.

“Landholders and communities in the Bourke Shire are fortunate that they generally get time to act with floodwaters from the north, and east, both taking time to arrive in the shire. To our north at Thargomindah, however, the locals just didn’t get that opportunity given the substantial rain event they experienced.

“Bourke landholders had time to move stock and prepare. I had a call from one landholder asking how far to move their stock and I suggested they move them as far away from the river as possible because you never know what’s around the corner with another rain event.”

Mrs Brown added that wet conditions during the cooler months add another layer of complexity to repairs.

“When roads go underwater at this time of year, they are difficult to repair as evaporation levels are comparatively low and it takes considerable time for the water to get off the road and for things to dry out,” she said.

“Council can’t put equipment on the roads  because they can’t turn around when there is  water in the table drains.”

Despite the challenges, no damage was reported within the Wanaaring township itself. Mrs Brown confirmed the town had been protected by a levee bank constructed quickly by Council with an excavator remaining in the village at the height of the flood.

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Example of road damage in the Bourke Shire. Photo Contributed