Miscellaneous Correspondence and Data on Alice Springs Flooding 1986
Hamlyn-Harris, D.; Galton, R. P.; Charrington, Rowan; Freyling, Ron
E-Publications; E-Books; PublicationNT; Report no. 33/1986
1986-04-01
Date:1986-04
English
Northern Territory Government
Alice Springs
Report no. 33/1986
application/pdf
Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
Northern Territory Government
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/229637
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/672763
I' I 1 I I I I 1 1 1 I I I I 1 1 I I I I BLACK: BIRD: ILETT: BIRD: JORDAN: BIRD: CLARKE: BIRD: 10 lfuat about the airport, is it only three appliances they have? They are still going to require them. If we are going to be isolated we are going to have major aircraft coming in, they would need their appliances for the size of a plane like a 727. As I can remember back 26 years ago, we used to put a couple of vehicles on the other side as it started to rain. And then just run across the footbridge. Now if the river come~ up high enough and we have a vehicle on the other side, but it doesn't flood the other side but takes the bridge out and we are partly flooded over here, we couldn't move the appliances around. We get a major fire and we have a $160,000 appliance just sitting on the other side of the causeway. We could probably move up a water trailer and pump so there's nothing else but for the firemen to come across the footbridge. They would have a three thousand gallon water tank and a pump. One experience I had in the Fir.e Brigade in 20 years I had done a lot of studying in Europe and down south, I have not yet come across any major fires, even went through cyclone Tracy and never attended one fire at all in Darwin. Admittedly we didn't have any gas or electric heaters in Darwin, but what I have read and been told of televisions and heaters on the ground, soon as the water hits the power switches its automatic that it has got to blow the fuses or the circuit breakers, so the risk is almost nil, even from electrocution. Our biggest problem is gas fires, where a lot of people are using gas, and the problems with the gas pipe lines. I think we are looking at just the ordinary private dwellings. Our problem is saving life. 98% of the people would be out of their houses before the fire occurred. We know about flooding, we know about the sort of problems. We got about 100% people getting out of fires now when they are asleep in Alice Springs, so I am sure when the house catches fire during floods the people will have left. I think the big thing with the east side, the risk apart from domestic, is not so great, large buildings there are probably schools or the Y.M.C.A. there is not much in the way of major property risk and or life risk. I think we are talking about evacuation, where you are taking them to the hospital, to the Alice High and Head Street, this is where we are going to have the major population, over the other side not on the east side, except for domestic homes. If we have to move everybody from the Old Timers all the way, it's all this side, so I cannot see the reason for splitting the Fire Service forces. . l