Narrabeen Floods As Lagoon Bursts

[mrmoshe]

Narrabeen floods as lagoon bursts

John Morcombe

12Sep06

NARRABEEN Lagoon broke its southern bank on Sunday, flooding Mactier St and The Esplanade.

State Emergency Service volunteers directed traffic around the worst-affected parts of the roads for about three hours, diverting traffic to the shallower side of the road while holding up oncoming traffic.

Warringah Pittwater SES duty officer Wayne Lyne said the water on the lake side of the road was about 35cm deep.

``The surprising thing was that of all the cars that went through the water, not one stopped to dry their brakes before diving on,'' he said.

A Warringah Council spokeswoman said the council tried to open the lagoon on Saturday afternoon but were frustrated in their attempts by the strong southerly swell, high tide and the amount of sand at the entrance of the lagoon.

``For a mechanical opening to work, the water level in the lagoon needs to be higher than the open sea,'' she said.

``This is normally achieved by opening the lagoon on a falling tide.

``The break-out was achieved on Sunday morning and the lagoon slowly started to go down.

``Attempting to open the lagoon earlier would not have been successful, due to the lagoon water level not being high enough, and to the large ocean swell and the large amount of sand in the entrance area.''

Mr Lyne said the Warrringah Pittwater SES had done 98 jobs since Thursday morning clearing storm damage, mainly trees and branches that had fallen on roofs and cars.

``We were going from 6am on Thursday to midnight,'' he said.

``That's 18 hours straight with four crews.

``I couldn't say yet how many man-hours we've put in over the past few days but it's been a lot.

``Thankfully the Rural Fire Service did a couple of jobs for us, and the Manly SES.''

Warringah Council plans to remove 50,000cu m of sand from the entrance to the lagoon, which will make mechanical openings of the lagoon easier, the spokeswoman said.

[FletcherG1991]

the council's always wait till the last minute to open the gates ..... i guess they waited to long this time..... atleast the fishing will improve when the open it

[Martin]

I was down there on Saturday morning and the water had backed up to the point that near the bridge on Pittwater Road it would have been 40mm from lapping over it.

With all the rain it would not have taken much thought to work out there was going to be a problem, but there is the problem in we expect Council to think.

Cheers

Martin

[mrmoshe]

With the lake open, I went down this arvo to the Ocean St bridge and fished for an hour

in the pouring rain ( I must be crazy) and managed a thumper bream at 29cm on my

first cast

The constant rain and wind finally got the better of me so I packed it in after an hour and me soaked

to the skin.

The lake is flowing nicely out to sea even though the entrance is very shallow. There was just so much water

in the lake and hopefully it will gouge a channel at the entrance.

I'll give it another shot tomorrow seeing the rain has finally called it a day.

The water in the lake is the nicest I've seen in a long time so hopefully the fishing

will be just as good now.

Pete.

[FletcherG1991]

im thinking down going down thursday can you put up (or PM ) where abouts the fish are biting as i want to get into some bream or somthing with my lures

[Guest johblow]

Fair dinkum they have only had like a year or something to open the lagoon entrance to the sea...!

[mrmoshe]

im thinking down going down thursday can you put up (or PM ) where abouts the fish are biting as i want to get into some bream or somthing with my lures

Check your PM

Pete

[orangeguy]

im thinking down going down thursday can you put up (or PM ) where abouts the fish are biting as i want to get into some bream or somthing with my lures

Fletcher, are the fish still biting? I'm planning to either go up to lake either tomorrow or sat.

Thanks.

[FletcherG1991]

i couldn't get down cause my mum has the cold and is stuck in bed hopefully get down on moday or tuesday if she is better

[bung]

Fair dinkum they have only had like a year or something to open the lagoon entrance to the sea...!

they opened it up earlier this year but natural coastal processes can close the entrance quickly with waves filling it in with sand. perhaps council should have dredged the entrance earlier/more often but it is expensive business (50000 cubic m is a lot of sand)

[mrmoshe]

Just went down to the lake for a look and Boy!...it's the lowest water level I've ever seen in the lake.

There are sand banks out of the water all over the lake and the smell is something else!!

Lots of exposed weed beds really getting on the nose in this warm weather.

The entrance is still very shallow with the occasional wave breaking over the sand bank heading to

high tide.

The sand bank opposite the caravan park is now fully exposed and you can walk right out to the channel

without getting your feet wet.

I fished the lake Wednesday arvo for a nice flattie but nothing else.

Tried the Ocean St bridge area near the entrance for a donut.

Nailed the flattie at Wimbledon Ave.

The North Narra beach looked nice so might go down for a session in the newly formed gutters by the pines.

Pete,

[Geoff]

The surprising thing was that of all the cars that went through the water, not one stopped to dry their brakes before diving on,'' he said.

Perhaps someone needs to point out to the guy that went out with drum brakes. Maybe he is driving around in an old FJ

Geoff

[barrykrocker]

ironic typo in that quote as well