NEW FLOOD EVACUATION ROAD SIGNAGE FOR THE HAWKESBURY-NEPEAN REGION

The Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres and Member for Mulgoa Tanya Davies today announced significant progress on new flood evacuation signage for the Hawksesbury-Nepean Valley.

“The area from Bents Basin near Wallacia to the Brooklyn Bridge is the most flood exposed area in NSW,” Minister Ayres said.

“While we haven’t seen a major flood here for some time, it will flood again – and we need to be ready for when it happens.

 “The NSW Government is committed to reducing the risk to people’s lives and their livelihoods from regional flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean – and supporting people to evacuate safely is a key part of our planning.” 

The Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Risk Management Strategy includes a mix of measures to improve the community’s flood preparedness and help people evacuate in a flood emergency. These include new flood evacuation road signage, improved flood forecasting, communication to raise community awareness, and better flood information.

“Evacuation is the key method to save lives in a flood emergency in the valley, and the $1.8 million signage project will help direct people along key evacuation routes during a flood emergency,” Tanya Davies said.

“I’m pleased to announce that work on the new signage is well underway – a draft signage system has been prepared by signage experts, and it is going through a comprehensive user testing process.”

The user testing includes driving simulator testing, a phone questionnaire and technical testing in the field. Last week driving simulator testing was completed with 100 floodplain residents using the TRACSLab facilities at the University of Sydney.

The phone questionnaire started this week with a representative sample of 400 floodplain residents. It will provide further insights into how people are likely to prepare, respond and drive during a flood emergency.

“This is the first time there has been a strategic regional approach to flood evacuation road signage in NSW, so it is important that we get this right,” Minister Ayres said.

The rollout of the new evacuation road signage across the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley is scheduled to start later this year.

For more information about the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Risk Management Strategy go to: www.insw.com/flood-strategy

Find out more about how to prepare for a flood at www.ses.nsw.gov.au