This morning, after many false starts, it appeared Jerrara Dam, between Kiama and Jamberoo, might actually fail.
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About a month before work decommissioning Jerrara Dam is set to finish, residents and emergency services personnel had what should be one last taste of the threat of the dam failing.
With work being underway to remove the dam wall, the region’s State Emergency Service decided about 9.20am to move to red alert and evacuate the properties in its shadow.
The SES issued a text message and media alerts stating dam failure was imminent and would result in extremely dangerous flooding of the following areas Mt Brandon Road, Jerrara. It looked like the dam might really breach on this occasion.
Mid-morning the emergency service personel conducted reconnaissance in a Westpac Lifesaver Helicopter and that the threat was minimal and the threat was downgraded.
Kiama SES unit controller Warren Turner said the decison to issue the evacuation order to houses in the immediate vicinity was a sound one.
‘‘Council gave us an amber alert initially and with discussion with our region they recommended we go to red alert for the five or six houses downstream of Jerrara Dam,’’ he said.
‘‘The region acted on the up-pendulum-side of being cautious.
‘‘We know the dam has had some work as part of the decommmising, we know an interim spillway has been put in and we know another wall has been buillt to protect the riding school (Riding for the Disabled).
‘‘Now we have had nearly 12 hours of rain, that wall has potential not to bust, but it would eventually erode but the water would spill into the flood plain. The risk to downstream residents is small and we have evacuted the down stream residents.
Kiama SES unit Deputy controller John Wall said the removal of the dam wall, as part of the decomissioning process, had made the flooding look worse than it was.
‘‘I did look pretty scary at the time and that was part of the reason we went for the red alert.
‘‘As an emergency manager you have to make sure you put people first,’’ he said. ‘‘Sometimes that means inconvenience for people but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Even though it is very unlikely that the dam would have breached there was enough of a chance for us to take the action that we did.’’
Mr Turner said of more concern than the the potential dam failure had been the ten rescues rescues of people from cars driven through flood waters.
‘‘Do not drive through flood waters under any circumstances,’’ he said. ‘‘Fortunately all the ones we went to the water wasn’t swift. If it was swift, they would be dead. It compromises our saftey to save them.
Mr Wall said other areas of concern in the municipality had included about 50-60 residents of Dido Steet being isolated for a periood of time since 5am due to water over the causeway.
He said members had been on duty since about midnight Monday,. He said in that time the Kiama unit had received about 48 jobs including leaking roofs, sandbagging and potential animal rescues including the horses at the bottom of the dam.
Children from Minnamurra Public School were evacuated at 9.30am and parents from Kiama and Jamberoo preschools were asked to get children, or not bring them due to the threat of flooding.
Annette Jones, administration manager at Minnamurra Public School said after a few radio broadcasts, the Facebook and SMS network went into overdrive and by 11.30am all but 15 students had been collected. Those students were supervised at Kiama Golf Club until 1.25pm when they were all collected.
Mr Wall said Kiama had 15-20 members were assisting and that the unit had received assistance from Maitland and Port Macquarie SES flood rescue technicians.
He said should expected intensification of the east coast low happen.
‘‘The event is well within our capabilities at the moment,’’ Mr Wall said. ‘‘The weather to the west and north of us is pretty good so we can bring teams from those regions if we need to.’’