00:02A flood this week at Darwin River Dam, inundating pumps and cutting the city's main water supply.
00:10Authorities now revealing how critical the situation was, with enough water left in the system at one stage for just
00:17a day and a half.
00:19And at that stage we moved into asking the community absolutely to dig a bit deeper and reduce more of
00:25their demand.
00:27With urgent repair work underway, the public was urged to limit showers to two minutes and curb all unnecessary use,
00:35or face even tighter restrictions if the water levels continued to drop.
00:40Larger restrictions and also alternative sources of water and alternative ways to get water to our communities.
00:47While the dam was offline, bore water was supplied, triggering a health warning to boil it before use.
00:54Some say that message wasn't communicated widely or clearly enough.
00:59Many people across Darwin and Palmerston called me that night when that Facebook message went out,
01:06not understanding what it meant to the quality of the water.
01:10Many people with health issues are wondering if their health would be compromised.
01:15NT Infrastructure Minister Bill Yan, who visited the dam this week, did not respond to that claim.
01:21Power and Water Corporation standing by how it communicated the dam's failure,
01:26but promising a deep dive to learn from the experience.
01:30Obviously we can't reduce the likelihood of severe weather events because they're out of our control,
01:34but we can reduce or change the way we respond to them.
01:38So we'll be looking at what flooding mitigations we can do for the Darwin River Dam site.
01:45Hopes are high a similar crisis won't be repeated, with another major drinking water source,
01:52Manton Dam, scheduled to come online later this year.
01:55be looking at physical safety. Let's
01:57see.
01:57You
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