The Central Coast continues to recover and clean-up, following the recent severe weather and flooding event.

Council continues to lead recovery efforts and is working closely alongside Resilience NSW, to support the community through this recovery stage.

For ongoing updates on recovery efforts and support available, head to Council’s dedicated webpage. 

Additional recovery hubs and community support

Resilience NSW recovery team with Central Coast Council, Service NSW, Services Australia and a range of other support teams remain at rapid assistance points (recovery hubs) to offer recovery assistance and provide access to information and services for flood-affected Central Coast residents.

Two recovery hubs remain open at The Entrance and Spencer, however there are changes to the opening hours from Monday 25 July 2022. Additional hubs will be open from week commencing 25 July.

Current list of recovery hubs and opening hours are:

The Entrance Hub: located at The Entrance Community Centre, Battley Ave, The Entrance.

• 10am to 4pm: Friday 22 July
• 10am to 2pm: Saturday 23 July, Sunday 24 July
• 10am to 3pm: Monday 25 July, Monday 1 August
• 12pm to 7pm: Thursday 28 July and Thursday 4 August

Spencer Hub: located at Spencer Community Hall, 4776 Wisemans Ferry Road, Spencer.

• 10am to 4pm: Friday 22 July
• 10am to 2pm: Saturday 23 July, Sunday 24 July
• 10am to 3pm: Friday 29 July and Friday 5 August

San Remo Hub: located at San Remo Neighbourhood Centre, 28 Brava Ave, San Remo.

• 10am to 3pm: Tuesday 26 July, Thursday 28 July, Tuesday 2 August, Thursday 4 August

Chittaway Hub: located at Chittaway Point Hall,72-76 Geoffrey Road, Chittaway.

• 10am to 3pm: Monday 25 July, Tuesday 26 July, Monday 1 August, Tuesday 2 August
• 10am to 2pm: Saturday 30 July, Saturday 6 August

Wyong Hub: located at Gudjagang Ngara Li-Dhi Aboriginal Corporation, 4 Church St, Wyong.

• 10am to 3pm: Wednesday 27 July, Wednesday 3 August

Mental health support

• Natural disasters, cleaning up and recovery can take a toll on your mental and physical health.
• There are services available to help and assist if you or a family member needs support. This includes local services, with Central Coast Local Health District's Mental Health Disaster Recovery team also available to provide support to individuals impacted by a disaster.
• Our dedicated webpage has further information on services available to help and support you: 

Financial aid

• The Central Coast local government area (LGA) is included in the NSW Government’s Natural Disaster Declaration Assistance, meaning people in our community who have been affected by this severe weather and flooding event can access a range of special assistance measures.  
• Assistance is available for individuals, small businesses, not-for-profit organisations, sporting clubs and more. For more information, head to the NSW Government’s website.
• For disaster payments, grants and financial assistance for people living in areas affected by severe storms and floods, contact Service NSW on 13 77 88 or head to one of the recovery hubs set up by Central Coast Council and Resilience NSW.

Waste services: clean-up of flood affected household waste

• Council collection crews have cleared (by hand) just over 200 tonnes of bulk waste to date, from flood impacted properties.
• Council have delivered almost 6,000 leaflets to flood impacted residents to provide them with information on flood bulk waste collection services. Some additional properties are still being identified as residents contact Council and advise of flooding from rivers and creeks.
• Council and its contractor will continue to collect flood bulk household waste from impacted properties over the coming two weeks. This two-week period will allow time for those impacted residents to have insurance inspections and alike carried out prior to placing waste out for collection. After the two-week period, cases for collections under the flood efforts will be assessed on an individual basis and will be considered alongside utilising any remaining ‘standard’ bulk waste collection entitlements.
• Council’s waste facilities continue to operate as normal with community members able to claim reduced tipping fees for flood impacted waste. The reduced fee only applies to waste arising from the recent storms and floods and customers are required to identify the location from which the waste was derived at the weighbridge.

Public reserves, parks and beach clean-up

Tuggerah Lakes

• Council staff continue to inspect and update its approach to remove sea grass (wrack) and vegetation deposited on the Tuggerah Lakes foreshore from the recent flood event, as we manage other weather impacts.
• Tuggerah Lakes Foreshore clean-up is underway at locations that can be accessed.
• Clean-up around Tuggerah Lakes will be completed over the coming weeks in a staged process (over multiple days, and not always consecutive).
• Council roads crews will commence roadside wrack/seagrass collection clean-up in affected areas from Thursday 21 July 2022.

 Parks and Reserves

• Council staff have assessed all park and reserve sites and cleared up to 70% of debris from these areas, to ensure they are in a safe and usable condition for the community.
• Council will continue to monitor the condition of remaining parks and reserve sites and ensure play space sites that were inundated by the flooding are clean and equipment is in safe working condition.
• Many of our parks and reserves currently are at saturation point and it may be some time before grass cutting at these sites can occur.

• Canton Beach local play space (located on the foreshore at Beach Pde between Lakeview St and Crossingham St) is temporarily closed due to significant storm damage. It’s anticipated that it will take several weeks to rectify the safety issues, with re-opening of this site anticipated for August (weather depending). The nearest play space is located at Belbowrie Street, Canton Beach further along the foreshore. 

Beaches

• Since the recent weather event began on Friday 1 July 2022, Council crews have collected 223 tonnes of storm related waste from our beaches.
• Council staff continue to inspect and collect flood debris that continue to wash up on beaches, with the majority being at southern beaches including Patonga, Umina and Ocean Beach.
• Consistent with the severe weather event, crews have collected additional asbestos fragments found on beach near Curtis Pde, North Entrance. Beach access closure signage in place at various locations.

Roads and potholes

• Council manages a road network of over 2,000 kilometres across the region which was further impacted by this month’s significant weather and flooding event.
• During this declared natural disaster, Council road crews worked continuously around the clock to respond to emergency road impacts such as landslips, trees over roads, road closures due to flooding and emergency pothole repairs to reduce safety hazards.
• Council is continuing to assess the damage from the storm event across the Coast’s road network, including impacts from any landslide/rockslides. Sites have been made safe however temporary road closures may remain in place while sites are assessed for remediation works.
• Over 210 road closures occurred since 1 July due to this recent weather event and flooding, with the majority reopened. Please check Council's website for up-to-date road closures.
• Unfortunately, just as pothole numbers were returning to pre-February and March storm levels following an intensive period of repairs, this latest natural disaster has created thousands of new potholes. Council is currently organising resources to undertake a further region wide road pavement inspection to identify the extent of road defects such as potholes which will be scheduled for repair on a priority risk basis. At this stage Council is unable to provide an accurate number of how many more potholes we are facing however it likely to be considerable. It was estimated that Council staff had undertaken approximately 8,000 pothole repairs across the Central Coast since early July, this in addition to the more than 13,000 pothole repairs in June.
• Drivers are encouraged to take extra caution on roads and please report potholes to Council (via Council’s online Customer Service Centre).

ENDS