As flood waters recede, Western Plains Regional Council (WPRC) staff have continued to assess the damage across the region.
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But with more than 1300 kilometres of unsealed road to inspect across Dubbo and Wellington – and more than 700 kilometres of sealed roads in the former Dubbo local government area alone – works and services manager Ian Bailey said it could be weeks before the full extent of the damage is known.
“We’ve had more of an opportunity to look around but we haven’t seen every road,” Mr Bailey said.
“There’s probably a month worth of clean-up work to do.
“Particularly the rural roads, there’s a lot of unsealed roads that we will have to do some gravel patching and maintenance.”
Roads aren’t the only infrastructure requiring attention.
The cycleway bridge below Tamworth Street has been cleared and reopened to the public, but the Shibble Bridge near Dundullimal Reserve could be closed for at least another week as the concrete pathway undergoes structural repairs.
It came as the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) issued its 20th and final minor flood warning for the Macquarie River on Monday morning.
At Dubbo, the river had been expected to peak around 7.6 metres on Thursday night, but only reached a minor flood level of 4.79 metres at 5.45am on Thursday.
Water levels continued to fall over the weekend, and had dropped to 1.54 metres – 0.5 metres shy of ‘normal’ levels – by 3pm on Monday.
The river had also fallen below the minor flood level at Warren, where NSW State Emergency Service (SES) Macquarie region volunteers had been deployed to help cope with the 8.9 metre peak.
But Macquarie region controller David Monk said affected residents had been well-prepared, making for a relatively uneventful weekend.
“They’ve got a levy out there so the preparation was on the rural properties out there,” he said.
“They know when they’re going to get isolated so a lot of them had already [stocked up].
“We had no resupply requests and everything went smoothly.”
He was also pleased to see motorists heeding warnings around driving through floodwaters.
“No, we had no drivers [needing rescue], or calls for assistance,” Mr Monk said.
“There’s still a lot of water around but most of [the streams have] become a bit a dribble now.
“The assessments are being undertaken...all the local councils will be responsible for their own assessments, patching up roads and inspecting bridges.”
