00:01Several Queensland regions have been gripped by flooding after days of consistent rain across wide parts of the state.
00:08The Weather Bureau is closely watching the Burnett River with major flooding possible in Bundaberg.
00:14Helen Blackburn is Mayor of the Bundaberg Regional Council and joins us now.
00:18Councillor Blackburn, thank you for your time this morning.
00:21What is the current situation in the Bundaberg region?
00:24The current situation in the Bundaberg region is that we are expecting a major flood level to occur sometime this
00:32afternoon for the Burnett River.
00:34So we're expecting flood levels similar to those that we had in 2010, so around about the seven and a
00:40half metre mark.
00:42And whilst we really encourage people that are in low-lying areas, if they're concerned, to come to an evacuation
00:49centre,
00:50we do know that they can head off to friends and family as well.
00:53So we're preparing everything, we'll be door knocking, we've got the evacuation centre open at our recreational precinct.
01:01For those people that want to sandbag, sandbags are available at Kendall's Road through the SES.
01:08So there's a lot of things going on, a lot of moving parts at the moment, but we just ask
01:12people to stay calm and look out for one another.
01:16Yeah, and what is the weather like there at the moment?
01:20Well, it's eerily fine today.
01:24So that is, it becomes a little confusing, I guess, because the rain's gone now, but, you know, the flood
01:32levels are continuing to rise because that water's been out west.
01:36And so, you know, we're now seeing the fruits of the last five days of rain.
01:42Yeah, and expecting similar levels, as I understand it, to 2010, is that your understanding and what does that look
01:49like there?
01:52Look, with similar levels to 2010, what that means is there's around 180 properties, habitable properties, that will be impacted.
02:01Now, those people that were impacted in 2010, they'll know who they are, but they're not just the only ones
02:07that will be impacted.
02:08Anybody impacted by floods from 2010, 11 and 13, that, you know, psychological effect on those people will be huge.
02:18So I just encourage everyone to be kind to one another during this time because it is really difficult for
02:23people that have been through floods before.
02:26And even though this will be a lower flood than, you know, the worst that we've had, we know that
02:31it can be really provide a lot of tension for people.
02:35And so we just need to take care and be calm with what we're doing.
02:39Make sure that if you've got a plan, execute your plan.
02:42Make sure that you've got your medications and your pets are OK and get yourself to somewhere that's safe.
02:48Council also has a flood gauge mapping tool and also I wanted to ask you if any flood risk for
02:54a particular area increases.
02:56How will people there find out about that?
03:00So we are sending out SMSs.
03:02So we've done that this morning.
03:04We just had our local disaster management group meeting and agreed to send text messages out to the wider region
03:11of Bundaberg to allow people to have time to act.
03:15And we will continue to send alerts when we need to let people know what's going on.
03:19However, we do encourage them to tune in to ABC Radio, which is 100.1 on the dial.
03:25And we also encourage people to have a look at the disaster dashboard that Council has, which is monitoring all
03:32of the roads, any water over roads, any road closures that we might have in the region.
03:37They are all right there.
03:39Helen Blackburn, Mayor of the Bundaberg Regional Council.
03:42Thank you for taking the time to speak to us.
03:43It's a busy day ahead there.
03:46Absolutely.
03:47Thank you very much.
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