Clean up from St Helens floods continues

60,000 lightning strikes struck St Helens during the storm which dumped 270mm on the town last Wednesday.  Photo by Grant Parke.

February 28, 2024

George’s Bay remains closed for all swimming, fishing and drinking after sewerage spilled over from last Wednesday’s unprecedented deluge in St Helens.

A large part of the catchment area received 270mm of rain during the weather event, with businesses, residents and the Break O’Day Council continuing to clean up the mess.

The storm brought with it 6000 lightning strikes, caused power outages and significant damage to public communication infrastructure and resulted in the closure of the local school.

Council’s depot was struck by lightning and remains out of action, as does the St Helens Marine Rescue.

Stormwater drains could not cope with the volume of water, with streets and buildings including the local school and a motel flooding. 

Sections of Binalong Bay Road, the Tasman Highway and Pendrigh Place were closed because of the high water levels.

“It was just more than our pumps and drains could handle,” Mayor Mick Tucker said.

Water testing was occurring daily to monitor E.coli levels in Georges Bay, which was devastating for the local oyster farming industry, he said.

“One oyster business there was shut for 277 days out of 365 last year because of flooding events and now they are closed again, so we are really hoping they will be open before Easter because you can imagine how hard it is for them,” Cr Tucker said.

St Helens District High School Parents Association Chair Nic Martin said the downpour proved extremely chaotic, with the school forced to close for clean up on Thursday and Friday.

Mr Martin said the town had recorded 34mm to 9am on Wednesday and then experienced another 198mm between 9am and 2pm, which was then followed by another 25mm of light drizzle later in the day.

“It certainly was an unprecedented heavy storm cell with so much lightning that had the kids screaming and then most of the town lost power,” Mr Martin said.

“It was isolated over St Helens with Falmouth only getting about 20mm of rain.”

An initial inspection of the flooded school deemed that six classrooms would need remedial work, but that number was revised upwards to 10.

“The insurance assessors have been back there and there will inevitably be flow-on effects for the next few weeks finding spots and patches that will need to be replaced.

“There was damage to the plaster and floors and carpet and a lot of chip board bookshelves will have to be replaced.”

Cr Tucker said flooding at the school highlighted the need for a detailed investigation of options by the State Government for the facility’s future, “as the flooding wasn’t related to water coming onto the property.”

Cr Tucker said council was still assessing and fixing damage to its infrastructure and while the cost of the inundation was still being counted, the situation could have been worse.

“If this had happened at the top of St Marys we’d have probably lost the St Mary’s Pass and Elephant Pass so when you look at the big picture, while it was pretty severe for the people impacted, we were pretty lucky,” Cr Tucker said.

Farmer Darc Nicklason received some social media notoriety after being photographed  moving 70 head of cattle based near St Helens to higher ground in his kayak.

“Pyengana only got about 60-80mm depending on where you were in relation to the hills and we just thought it was a lovely rain,” Mr Nicklason said.

“One of my mates had 321mm in four to five hours at Goshen so we underestimated it a bit.”

He said the paddock that his cows needed to be rescued from was inundated quickly.

“I went out in the ute and drove through about eight to 10 inches and in about 10 minutes it went to three feet deep, so I had to leave the ute, swim and get my kayak to get the cattle.

“Normally we get a lot more notice and perhaps it highlights the need for a weather radar station in the North-East – I am not an expert but I would suggest it would improve the accuracy quite a lot and I reckon we have an argument for one.”