Damage caused by July's severe weather event to roads, riverbanks, beaches and infrastructure across Port Stephens is expected to be "in the millions".
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A full assessment of the damage began to made on Monday as Port Stephens Council moved into its post-flood recovery process.
Greg Kable, the council's group manager of facilities and services, said the council is working with the SES to support residents in isolated communities, starting to assess damage to roads and infrastructure and would be advocating for government financial support to undertake repairs quickly.
The situation
An East Coast Low off the NSW coast brought heavy rain, damaging surf and wind to the Hunter between Sunday, July 3 and Thursday, July 7 and caused flooding in low-lying parts of western Port Stephens while battering beaches and reserves in the east. It followed a similar weather event in February and March.
As of Tuesday, the Paterson, Williams and Hunter rivers, which reached minor to moderate flood levels at the peak of the flooding on Friday and Saturday, July 8-9, were slowly receding but many roads and areas in the Port's west remained cut off.
The communities of Hinton, Osterley, Nelsons Plains, Eagleton and Woodville remained isolated due to flood waters. Hinton and surrounds were cut off by the roads on Thursday, July 7. It is the second time in 2022 that Hinton has been isolated.
"Because we're tidal here, it means there's a slower ride here but also slower to go down which could mean the communities we have isolated at the moment could stay isolated for longer," Mr Kable said.
Parts of Riverside Park, Hunter, Swan and Glenelg streets, the Fitzgerald Bridge and Newline Road areas were still experiencing localised flooding.
Council response
Up to five pothole repair and two contractor repair crews have been out working across Port Stephens since the start of the severe weather on July 2.
A crew has also been working "around the clock" monitoring flood waters and implementing road closures and diversions.
The council's emergency staff have been embedded in the Local Emergency Management Centre.
Run by Port Stephens police, it includes representatives from each emergency service in the area for a coordinated approach to emergency situations.
Council staff attended a joint recovery meeting with Resilience NSW and the Local Emergency Operations Controller on Monday to begin the "next steps" for recovery.
Terrace levee
The council continues to complete daily visual inspections of the Raymond Terrace levee at the Kangaroo and Bourke street pumps.
This will continue until water levels recede on both sides of the levee.
As an emergency preparedness measure, at the start of the rain event the council hired a pump to pump water away from the Stockton Street pond in Nelson Bay. This was born from lessons learned in the 2015 flood.
This pump was ultimately not needed in Nelson Bay, and was instead redeployed to Bourke Street, Raymond Terrace.
A different kind of flood
Mr Kable, who has been with the council since 2011, said flooding caused by the April 2015 superstorm was higher than those in 2022 but said the July flooding had been "really different to respond to".
"We had two fine days before the water arrived here which meant that we didn't have to deal with water so much on inside the levee but that created other problems in that the pumps we use to pump out from behind the levee weren't getting enough flow to keep constantly pumping," he said.
"That in turn lead to some problems with the pumps and also problems with the levee in two spots where the pumps go out. That's the first time we've experienced that in a long time."
There was a minor collapse of the levee near the Bourke Street pump, and a larger collapse of the levee near the Kangaroo Street pump pipe. However, pumping was not affected.
Evacuation centre
An evacuation centre was opened at the Raymond Terrace Senior Citizens Centre on Saturday, July 9 in preparation to receive flood-affected residents.
However, it has not been utilised. The centre remains operational and on standby but operator Department of Community and Justice reported that it has received no attendees requiring assistance.
Roads
A large number of roads to the west of the Fitzgerald Bridge in Raymond Terrace were still closed on Tuesday, with many still completely underwater.
A list of road closures can be found on the council's Disaster Dashboard: disaster.portstephens.nsw.gov.au/dashboard/overview.
Potholes
The council manages more than 800km of roads across the LGA.
"We invest more than $1.6 million into the management and maintenance of our road networks each year," Mr Kable said.
"We have a rolling schedule of road maintenance and although we'd like to reseal about 10 per cent of our networks each year, we do less than 2 per cent due to a lack of resources.
"Potholes need to be repaired as quickly as possible however, after heavy rain, we get lots of potholes and need to prioritise which ones get fixed first.
"To fix a pothole properly we need to reseal or rehabilitate the road and we just don't have the resources to do this on every road. Outside of this we have to use temporary measures to fix potholes.
"When we have constant rain, like we do now, a cold patch is the best method to use. We need to fill as many holes as we can to avoid risk to our community. If it's raining, a hot mix won't work."
Mr Kable said the council cannot repair potholes if it did not know about it and urged the community to report pothole locations: authorityapp.portstephens.nsw.gov.au/eservice.
A word from the Mayor
Mayor Ryan Palmer said although it looks like the worst of the rain is over, we're still not out of the woods.
"Our already soaking grounds across Port Stephens have been hit by heavy rainfall since late last week and the impacts on people's property, our roads and infrastructure is huge," he said.
"We have huge numbers of potholes, damaged roads, and erosion on our riverbanks and coastline. We won't know the total cost of the damage until the flood waters subside - but we're expecting it to be in the millions.
"Our teams have been out across the community doing as much as they can. We've had up to five crews repairing potholes with an extra two contractor crews helping out.
"As a priority, they're fixing the worst potholes on our high speed roads. Over the next few weeks, they'll start working across the LGA."
Cr Palmer acknowledged the hard work of staff over the past week.
"We've had staff at the Local Emergency Management Centre at Maitland all week and we have teams working around the clock monitoring river levels and closing roads - plus crews out and about undertaking emergency repairs to roads and other infrastructure," he said.
"I also want to acknowledge our incredible emergency services, especially the SES, and all the others supporting the response and recovery effort across Port Stephens.
"We know this is a tough time for our community and I want to thank you for your patience during the recovery phase.
"We were just hitting our stride in our recovery from the March storms and this has been a real setback for many locals and businesses.
"There's still a lot of work we need to do to get back to normality and I ask for the community's support as we plan our recovery.
"We'll continue to advocate to state and federal governments for their support to help - it's our job to help ensure we get the best possible outcomes for the Port Stephens community."
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