Flood peak passes but Hay remains vigilant

The Murrumbidgee River at Hay peaked at 8.68 metres on Friday and is currently falling, while the Lachlan River reached 3.22 last Thursday. Both rivers failed to meet the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) revised predictions.

Flooding continues to occur across the Hay Shire with many unsealed roads under water. As well as a significant stretch of the Cobb Highway, north of Booligal.

Hay Shire Council is continuing to monitor the levee, and flood gates remained closed. Pumps remain in place to remove any rainfall from the storm water system.

The river focus now switches to Maude and further downstream; The BoM predicts Balranald may reach 6.90 metres around the second week in November.

At Booligal the BoM predicts the Lachlan could remain near 3.20 metres through to mid-November.

A big shout out to the high school students and their teachers for the assistance given to the SES last week.

The team managed to produce 180 sandbags in a bit over an hour.

Members of the public would have seen the SES flood boats on the river a number of times last week undertaking flood reconnaissance and medical transfers.

This is a part of the SES normal operations during flood events.

Hay SES was fortunate enough to receive the support of two highly experienced flood boat operators from Cairns for three days during the anticipated peak of the Murrumbidgee River at Hay.

The flood boat operators undertook reconnaissance of the river to give the local SES unit information regarding the water flows directions of flow and the height of the river.

The boat operators also assisted in a number of medical transfers and welfare checks on the river whilst they were in Hay.

This allowed other members of HAY SES unit to undertake varying duties and to supervise the high school students in the sandbagging operation.

The two boat operators also assisted members of the Hay unit in general land reconnaissance and sandbagging as needed.