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Storm damage sparks natural disaster call

Monday March 8, 2010 - 15:17 EDT

The Central Darling Shire Council wants the New South Wales Government to declare the area a natural disaster zone again.

Wild rain whipped through parts of the shire, bringing strong winds and 35 millimetres of rain to White Cliffs.

A similar storm hit the shire last month and the area was declared a natural disaster zone.

The council's general manager, Tim Hazell, says this weekend's storm has caused more damage to local roads, including to the already broken Wilcannia to White Cliffs road.

"That road is closed. I have heard some reports of people driving around the road closed sign, obviously that places people in particular danger," Mr Hazell said.

"There are sections of the road up that way that are in a dreadful state at this stage and pose a real danger to people if they're going to travel on them while they're closed."

About 80 millimetres of rain has fallen on the town of Ivanhoe over the past three days.

Ivanhoe resident and the Mayor of the Central Darling Shire, Ray Longfellow, says the town has been drawing on bore water for a long time and the rain has taken a burden off some landholders.

"You know, the little bit of inconvenience that it's caused and the amount of damage, look we've got to live with it, nothing comes free, but water is much better than dust."

Meanwhile, Broken Hill's water supply has been secured for just over two years.

Recent rain has filled both of the city's water storages, taking Stephens Creek to 18,000 megalitres and Umberumberka up to 8,000 megalitres.

Country Water's regional general manager, Guy Chick, says the storages have not been at capacity for about 18 years and suffered some damage from the increase in water.

"At Stephens Creek there's a retaining wall that was installed a number of years ago, well there's been some damage to that," Mr Chick said.

"But obviously we won't be able to get to that for some time now. It's not substantial, but it's something that we'll have to repair when [we] have access to it.

"At Umberumberka the reservoir's fine, but there's some wash away because of the overflow."

- ABC

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