The weekend’s torrential downpour, heavy winds and king tides have caused thousands of dollars of damage to infrastructure at Pambula Beach.
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While council says it is too early to estimate the shire-wide financial cost of the storm, Pambula Surf Life Saving Club president Steve Hogson said the damage at Pambula Beach alone was well over $10,000.
On Friday, before the storm, council staff removed the lower sections of the Pambula Beach wheelchair access path in preparation for the forecast heavy seas.
Unfortunately, they did not remove enough of the path and sections that were left over the weekend have since been washed away.
“I spotted part of the path floating near the rocks on Saturday, but I don’t know where it is now,” Mr Hogson said.
“We think most of it has gone out to sea, but we can’t be too sure until all the sea foam settles down and we can really access the damage.”
The 68-metre-long wheelchair friendly ramp was installed at the end of April and received an overwhelmingly positive response from locals and visitors alike.
The project was made possible through NSW grants offered to Surf Life Saving NSW, with local support from Bega Valley Shire Council and Pambula Surf Life Saving Club.
Replacing the lost sections of the access ramp will not come cheap.
On top of this, the emergency access to the beach has been completely wiped out and a viewing platform that was only installed at the beach in December 2015 after seven years of planning will need to be repaired.
Mr Hogson said once the king tides calm down they will get an engineer in to assess the damage, but fixing the platform could cost anywhere between $5000-$10,000.
Over the weekend an Emergency Operations Centre was activated with members of the local council and emergency services coordinating a response to the wild weather. BVSC spokesperson Terry Dodds urged the public be patient, blaming stretched resources for emergency response delays.
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