The clean-up is just the beginning.
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The amount of flood waste removed and cleaned up during the past fortnight is significantly more than the 25,000 tonnes collected each year from red bins across the entire Mid Coast region.
More than 40,000 tonnes of flood waste was collected from homes, businesses and streets across the region as MidCoast Council continues to work with recovery taskforce members in a joint effort with the NSW Police, State Emergency Service (SES), NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), Fire and Rescue, Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Public Works Advisory.
They have also worked with a range of local contractors to deal with the majority of the flood waste in such a short period.
"A huge thank you to the ADF and to the other agencies who have had members travel from outside the region to spend the last fortnight helping across the Mid Coast. A number of these crews have now moved to other areas of need but their assistance has been invaluable," council's director of liveable communities Paul De Szell said.
"The clean-up will continue as we welcome Disaster Relief Australia into our region, to assist our team and contractors along with local SES and RFS volunteers."
The clean-up is just the beginning, we will be recovering from this flood event for a long time.
- Paul De Szell
Disaster Relief Australia is an Australian non-government organisation that unites the skills and experience of military veterans with emergency services specialists to deploy disaster relief teams in the wake of natural disasters.
"We are really pleased Disaster Relief Australia will be in our region to help support the continued clean-up of flood impacted areas," Mr De Szell said.
"While the strike force teams were able to get into our main towns and business areas and make a big difference quickly, we are now facing a different more strategic phase of the clean-up where affected properties are more spread out and have a range of different issues for us to deal with."
With the bulk of the clean-up complete, the process for collection will now slow down. Residents who may have been delayed with their clean-up due to insurance or accessibility issues, will need to call the Flood Recovery Hotline on 1300 545 400 and register their pick-up.
"The clean-up is just the beginning, we will be recovering from this flood event for a long time," Mr De Szell added.