We won't pay
GORDONVALE residents still reeling from January's floods have had another slap in the face with the council's insurer refusing to pay them compensation.
That is despite the council’s own investigators blaming newly installed culverts and the condition of a man-made drain for contributing to the flooding in a new sub-division near Riverstone Rd.
"It’s pretty gut-wrenching really," Mighell Close resident Betty Malone told The Weekend Post.
About 25 residents sent claims to the Queensland Local Government Mutual Liability Pool after their homes were inundated with knee-deep water during a flash flood on January 8.
But the claims were rejected because "the subsequent damage to your property would have occurred irrespective of any
alleged act or omission on the part of council".
The insurer blamed a one-in-100-year event as the cause of the sudden inundation, despite documents from the weather bureau showing rainfall was a one in two-to-five year event.
Just days after the flooding the council linked newly installed culverts under Riverstone Rd and the condition of the drain to the cause, and moved quickly to install a higher levee along the drain.
Cr Paul Gregory yesterday promised to go into bat for the affected residents and described the letter from the LGM as a "blanket" response to flood victims right across Queensland.
"All the evidence that we have from the bureau and all we gave to them (the insurer) shows the event was not of that magnitude," he said of the insurer’s response.
"We have had rainfall events since but it didn’t overtop the drain because of the immediate, but temporary, work that was done. To me that is irrefutable evidence."
He urged people to write back to the insurer to refute the claim that the January flood was a one-in-100-year event.
Residents are anxious to get the insurance issue solved.
"It would be nice to be able to move on," Joanne Wilesmith, whose Mighell Close home
received about $80,000 worth of damage, said yesterday.
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Dry times: Joanne Wilesmith and Betty Malone stand on a bridge which stretches over a creek where flood waters rose and inundated their homes.
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