MAJOR traffic routes in the central areas of Tamworth will be closed for part of the day tomorrow and again on Tuesday so Tamworth Regional Council workers can practise putting the city’s flood barriers into place.
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The flood trials will see the Taminda end of Ebsworth St closed at various times between 7am and 1pm tomorrow so the council can install about 130m of special modular aluminium barriers as a test run for any future floods.
The exercise will see about 12 to 14 specialist council staff put up and pull down the modular barriers, which are almost like a snap-lock fence and help keep floodwaters out of the floodplain areas.
Under its flood plan, the council has to hold the trial run each year. This week’s practice will test the demountable flood emergency timing and placement.
The barriers provide a watertight or sealed structure when floodwaters threaten.
Although the city’s flood levee was built to protect the main CBD and the Taminda industrial area about six years ago, there are a couple of spots that are susceptible to inundation in a major flooding event.
They include near the Barnes and Ebsworth streets roundabout near the railway viaduct, and near the bridge pillars of the main Peel River bridge in Bridge St.
The levee was built to protect businesses from a one-in-100-year flood, plus one metre above that, but couldn’t reach that height and still allow for traffic under the railway line at the roundabout.
The main bridge route linking south and east Tamworth in Bridge St will be closed to traffic between Carter St and Kable Ave from 7.30pm on Tuesday until about 1am on Wednesday.
The Taminda road closures will still allow traffic into the industrial area.
