Residents at Fingal and Chinderah were ordered to evacuate last week as king tides, full moons and torrential rain all combined to have the Tweed River breaking its banks.
And while further south at Murwillumbah and Tumbulgum were worse off than our local area, residents from a couple of the area’s low-lying caravan parks spent the night at the emergency evacuation centre at Kingscliff TAFE. Some of those older frail community members who were not able to sleep on the floor of the TAFE canteen were moved to nearby Mantra.
Volunteers came from everywhere helping out in roles from Red Cross to SES to help keep everyone safe through the crisis which unfolded on Wednesday and to a lesser extent Friday last week.
The Bureau of Meteorology in Sydney said the downpour (282mm recorded at the Coolangatta Tweed Golf Club on the 25th and 26th) helped make it the wettest January since 1951. The Tweed recorded 567mm for January just pipping the 1951 total of 557mm. And while it was a lot of rain in a short time, we residents know it’s not that unusual – the 25-26 total was only the wettest two-day total since 2008 when 319mm fell between November 26 and 27. And if you are wondering what the wettest month in recorded Tweed history is – well it’s February 1956 when 897.9mm fell.
