As the residents of our shire enjoyed their weekend, the extraordinary actions of on-call Council workers meant that a fresh landslip on Armidale Road over the weekend has already been resolved.
Armidale Road has unfortunately proven over the years that it is vulnerable to the weather.
In addition to the potential for river crossings to be closed, the road itself has recently seen a number of landslips close portions of the road, as rain loosened embankments above the road surface.
And last weekend proved to be no exception.
Late on Saturday afternoon, Council was notified that there had been a significant landslip on Armidale Road at Comara.
The on-call team was quick to respond and located the slip 20km west of Bellbrook at a location know as Jobs Cutting. This would impact campers or visitors to Blackbird Flat Campsite in addition to local residents.
While closing the road for days was an option, Council’s team chose to begin works immediately.
The crew brought in essential equipment immediately and worked into the evening to commence cleaning the slip.
Unfortunately, they were beaten by daylight and the road remained closed overnight. Crucially, because of the work on Saturday afternoon and early evening, the road was reinstated for emergency services access, should it have been required.
Council staff were back on station first thing in the morning on Sunday however to continue clean-up and carry out a full inspection of the face of the landslip to assess the potential safety risks.
Shortly after midday on Sunday Council’s roads team successfully cleared the remainder of the debris produced by the slip.
At this point inspections were carried out of the area to ensure the safety of all and the site was deemed acceptable to be opened to general traffic.
The end result saw Armidale Road cleared in less than 24 hours after a major landslip.
