Stop Children Playing in Storm Water.
Letter Gympie Times Would Not Print. Why??
Yes, it’ raining again, and as the Summer is approaching more than likely Gympie will suffer more than other towns from Storm flash flooding. Gympie does not just have the most licensed shooters per capita in Queensland we also have the largest Air Guns in the world.
Many, at first will not understand why the two sentences above are related, so I will explain;
1. Gympie is hilly with steep slopes.
2. Council has approved developers to build over water courses. Houses and footpaths have been constructed where naturally creeks and streams used to flow.
3. In some new developments Council has approved storm drainage pipes and systems which are too small.
4. When 115 mm of water falls from the sky in a storm, thousands of tons of water run into the pipe systems above, gravity creates force and acceleration of this water.
5. When the piped water acting like a giant piston, hits an obstruction such as the water still stuck in the lower areas, as the pipes are to small to clear it, the air in the system is pushed out at great speed.
6. This air forces and shears the half inch bolts that hold the 65 kg man hole covers.
7. The man hole covers are then propelled into the air, they are the 600 mm calibre air gun projectiles rising up to fall back into the ensuing flood water.
The scenario above occurred in 2005 in the Southside Mc Fail St development twice in one week, the later one was worse as the torrent washed sections of the road away. So the road problem was reported in the papers. Three foot of water was flowing through the footpaths, under that water was the man holes without lids. Before the heavy rain ceased, children were out playing in the warm flood water. Oblivious to the fact that beneath that brown flood water on the foot path there were deep holes, that would take them for an underwater, under the town, trip to the Mary river at great speed.
No human could survive a trip like that. Their least worry would be the shortness of oxygen. Speed and force would kill them in seconds, they might be able to hold their breaths for a few minutes but in every occurrence, (last time two years ago on the Gold Coast) it’s a fatality. So remember, do not step into flood water if you cannot see what is beneath your feet, even on the foot path. Stop children immediately from playing in the flood water.
During the last term of Council, I and two other Councillors tried to have the Mc Fail problem and others rectified, but as we were a few against many, unfortunately we failed. These problems are still there waiting for the next Storm event.
I believe that we all are responsible to our community for what we leave for the next generation. On the 1st of December 2005 we had 115mm of rain in 24 hours and a metre of water running down the footpaths. Gympie’s recorded highest rainfall in a 24 hour period during white settlement is 336 mm, so when that day re-occurs that is 3 metres running down the footpath.
I believe that we all are responsible to our community for what we leave for the next generation to suffer. It might not rain hard for another 20 years but one day we will have the same rainfall that fell at Beerwah in 1893, 907 millimetres in one day and 812 mm in a 12 hour period at Rainbow Beach in August 2007. For Gympie these rainfalls would be devastating, not just on Southside but throughout the Gympie City, heavy rainfalls cause landslides as occurred in Thredbo NSW some years ago, when just one storm-water pipe failed. Why place lives and fortunes at risk, vigilance is cheap, failure is expensive.
Let us hope these events never happen in our community but until Gympie’s diverted streams are properly drained please keep the kids out of the floodwater.
Ron Owen, 0754825070 0754829566 24 Mc Mahon Rd Gympie 4570 Queensland