Council response to damaging weather 22 March 2023
Following the damaging winds sustained across the City of Burnside on Monday 20 March there remains a significant amount of work for Council over the coming weeks. Because of this we would like to provide an update of the ongoing works and subsequent impact on some of our services.
The immediate actions undertaken in the past two days include the following:
- Field service teams have been deployed across the city to primarily scout all suburbs so that we have enhanced intelligence of priority areas. Where possible the teams are cleaning up and are logging further work such as tree work, tree inspections and additional clearing.
- Contractors and consultants have been engaged to support in the field and they are working/have worked on priority areas including the George Bolton Swimming Centre, Hazelwood Park, Kensington Gardens Reserve, main roads and Stonyfell, which has the highest concentration of mature trees.
- The Urban Forest team are continuing to triage tree assessments and are working on the most urgent areas first. This includes prioritizing large mature trees near schools and kindergartens.
- Playgrounds at Hazelwood Park and Knightsbridge Reserve have been closed for the week due to the proximity of nearby branches in the surrounding trees. The Tusmore Wading Pool remains closed due to the recent power outage, affecting sanitation capabilities, and the damaged fence.
- Large trees/logs that can be left safely will remain in place for at least two weeks while field teams work on clearing other debris and hazards.
CEO Chris Cowley said the majority of field team services have been placed on hold until at least Thursday 23 March while these urgent works are ongoing.
“Following the intense weather event we sustained on Monday we have had a significant amount of tree debris fall within our streets, parks and reserves,” Mr Cowley said.
“Our field teams have been hard at work to assess the damage and clear debris where possible, and this work takes precedent at the moment.
“I am so proud of every team at the City of Burnside for their tremendous work over the past few days to effectively deal with this situation.
“On Monday alone we received a 141 per cent increase in phone calls to our Customer Experience team, and a 230 per cent increase in customer requests.
“This was a small but destructive event, the scale of which has not been seen since the 2014 storms. I ask the community to take the utmost care and only access our local parks and reserves if absolutely necessary. Our teams are still undertaking risk assessments with a lot of ground to cover over the coming days, and we thank you for your patience as we continue to work diligently to clean up the remaining debris.”
The City of Burnside has contacted the Local Government Functional Support Group to request assistance from other Councils, with a request made for arboriculture field service teams that can clear and chip tree debris.
More information will be provided in the coming days on our website and social media pages and we thank the community for their patience and support during this time.
