After several days of being closed due to flooding, the Eyre Highway has now re-opened … although Main Roads WA is urging motorists to exercise ‘extreme caution’ and to ‘drive to conditions’.
The route across the Nullarbor Plain linking east and west in the south has been hit by freakishly heavy rains that left significant amounts of water on the road.
Parts of WA saw more than half a year’s worth of rain in 24 hours, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting 24-hour totals of up to 130 millimetres for parts of the Goldfields, Eucla and South Interior districts, areas with average annual rainfalls of around 260 millimetres.
The Eyre Highway is, of course, a key route for freight moving across the country, as well as for grey nomads and other tourists exploring the country.
The Eyre HIghway has already been closed several times this year. PIC: CIzza
In a sign of just how volatile and extreme Australian weather conditions can be, it is just a few weeks since the iconic road was last closed … but that was because of fire.
An out-of-control bushfire hit the road near the Balladonia Roadhouse and forced its closure from February 21-24, the second time a blaze had stopped motorists using the route just this summer.
And back in 2019 and 2020, the highway was closed for a whopping 12 days due to a massive blaze.
While the Nullarbor literally means ‘no trees’, the Great Western Woodlands stand at the western end, and it is here that fires seem to be taking hold with growing regularity.
Peter Fitchat, the chief executive of the Shire of Dundas, which stretches from Norseman to the WA-SA border, told the ABC that things needed to change … and more funding was needed.
He told the national broadcaster that it made no sense that his local government, which had no technical expertise in fire management and a tiny rates base, was responsible for managing fires across much of its 93,179 square kilometre jurisdiction.
Mr Fitchat said the shire hands bushfire control to DFES at the earliest opportunity, but that can sometimes take weeks.
He said his local government could play a bigger role in firefighting and preventing Eyre Highway closures in the future … but it would need relevant land access permissions, workplace health and safety plans and guaranteed state government funding for fire mitigation and management.
“If I know that I’ve got a certain percentage of money coming for that purpose, we can safely create roads, turn-around points, lookout points, water points, evacuation points,” Mr Fitchat said. “And then manage it safely, and reduce the risk.”
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Due to head back to WA leaving Adelaide 24th March, thankfully the Eyre Highway is open but another freak weather event could close it again as the country is saturated. About time the Great Central Road was sealed, don’t you think. Only 2 sealed roads into WA. We are well and truly treated like second class citizens in WA by all the wise people in the East.