Most of us take our roading network for granted. We don’t give a second thought when it comes to moving freely from point A to B.
Far from our minds, but certainly not far from reality, is the chance of an earthquake, tsunami, storm surge, landslide or wild fire that could wipe out part of the roading network, severing access to communities and, within a very short time, posing life-threatening situations.
But for the Inroads team, such events and probabilities are high priority and must be figured out and prepared for.
Council has undertaken a risk study of the Western Bay roading network to determine its ability to withstand nature’s fury.
All local roads and state highways have been ranked in order of priority as to their importance to the social and economic wellbeing of the community and how the community would be impacted if those roads were destroyed by a major disaster.
Using this analytical data, our engineers have assessed the natural risk of each road link and the consequences if it was destroyed – such as the cost and effort to reinstate it and the cost of traffic disruption.
A collapsed bridge will not only constitute a hazard for traffic but may also cut off essential utilities that may be attached to the bridge deck, or prevent road access to vital infrastructure.
The result is be a detailed map dividing the Western Bay carriageway into high-risk sections, with instant access to information as to why each area is high risk.
The next phase was to work out what can be done to mitigate, eliminate or plan for the risk to each road.
Recent storm, flooding and earthquake events have provided our engineers with timely information that has been fed into this study.
It is the first time such analysis has been done on a roading network and is part of a lifelines project being developed by Council.