Cotter closed

Was out there this morning, the bridge was well above the waterline, BWA vehicles crossing it – but the road certainly closed off with someone there to advise of the fact to those who missed the several signs and the final blockage of bollards.

Didn’t get a pic of a 4wd crossing the bridge (yeh yeh, so it didn’t happen 😛 ) but got some nice pics of the Cotter River defying attempts to build a new dam.

thatsnotme said :

Interesting theory. I’m just wondering why, if this is the case, that in the latest time lapse photo on the ACTEW web site (currently from Tuesday, with a whole lot of water going over the dam) there are 2 earthmovers, plus 4 people, walking on the ground directly in the path of any flooding that would be caused by any dam failure?

I think the situation has got a bit more more serious from Tuesday to Wednesday – Was the bridge still open on Tuesday? In any case, yesterday there was a large volume of water flowing through the area where those excavators and people were on Tuesday. You can see all this from Brindabella Road. There is a large water diversion pipe that normally allows them to work in the area below the dam, but the pipe is not coping with the volume of water now.

Interesting theory. I’m just wondering why, if this is the case, that in the latest time lapse photo on the ACTEW web site (currently from Tuesday, with a whole lot of water going over the dam) there are 2 earthmovers, plus 4 people, walking on the ground directly in the path of any flooding that would be caused by any dam failure?

Flooding… I swear ACTEW used to be better at making up excuses. If the bridge downstream of the dam were flooded, then Point Hut, Coppins and Uriarra would be under a couple of metres of water.

The bridge flooding thing is bollocks – the water level would be at least 2 metres below the deck of the bridge. They are worried that the baffle boards on the old dam are going to give way. These were installed to temporarily increase the capacity of the dam, but were not designed to have 2 metres of water running over the top of them, which is what they have now. You would not want to be downstream when those boards go.