“A safer location could be with family or friends outside the risk area, or to the Echunga Football Club,” said SES SA. Source: SES SA
The SES has sent out an emergency warning for residents of Echunga in South Australia after concerns that a dam wall could collapse.
Overnight authorities were made aware of a privately-owned dam that has shown signs of structural failure with the SES saying there is potential for flooding.
According to SES officer David O’Shannessy, the dam is located on a farm between Marianna St and Churchill Road some 500m upstream from Echunga and holds around 10 megalitres of water.
They issued an emergency alert, urging anyone living in flood prone areas of Echunga to prepare for flooding and relocate to a safer location.
Even though teams are working to prevent such a situation, authorities say that some roads will be closed and community support offered.
“SA SES is also continuing to work on lowering the level of the dam through the excavation of a spillway and pumping. This has the potential to release water which may exceed the capacity of the drainage system of Echunga, which may cause parts of Echunga to flood.
“Highly trained personnel from emergency services, including SA SES Swift Water Rescue Technicians, will remain on site until the risk has subsided.”
Sandbags have been made available at the local CFS.
Mr O’Shannessy said that there’s been quite a lot of rain recently in the Adelaide Hills and that could have contributed to the deterioration of the dam wall.
“The catchments are quite soaked and so a lot of the water that would normally be soaked up by the ground is just now going to run off, so the dams are very full up there,” he said.
“So that combined with quite wet ground, it appears just in this case that this private dam’s had a shift and that’s started a couple of shifts.
“So I think it’s just a really unfortunate series of events as an isolated event but I think we have had enough rainfall over the winter to see this happen.”
Food and other resources have been set up at an evacuation centre at the Echunga Football Club.
