Last Friday night I rode down to Boyd Park to witness the effects of the torrential downpour that was occurring.
Amazing sights with the northern end of the park a lake and Wilson st towards Dandenong Rd an over metre deep torrent with a strong current which was a battle to get thru.
Cars parked in Wilson St were beginning to float and roll- Many of the houses on both sides of the park were unfortunately on the verge of being flooded with water approaching the verandahs.
Was sheltering in the BBQ area making a call on when over a few minutes torrents of water started sweeping down from the streets to the north, - the streets had become small rivers!
In December council voted to match a Federal govt grant of $500k to construct a 1.5million litre underground reservoir under Boyd Park that will help to alleviate flooding on both sides of the park and allow stormwater captured to be used for irrigation of Boyd and other parks.
It was quite a battle to see this approved but feel the ensuring circumstances that are predicted to happen more frequently in the future have certainly endorsed this decision
Yes Neil, the battle was to try to get Councillors to understand that they are spending over $1million to build a underground tank (hardly a "reservoir"). If this "lemon" is empty at the time of the next flood it will hold a little over half a full Olympic sized swimming pool. The net result of this $1million will be to reduce the level of last Friday's flood by perhaps a few millimetres. Does Council really have surplus money to wash down the drain - or could it be better spent on child-minding centres and kindergartens?
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