Storms and heavy rainfall
During a large wet weather event such as a storm, we may see high volumes of rain and conditions that can cause damage. This can sometimes impact our water and wastewater network through:
- Power outages can affect water pumps and boosters, interrupting your water supply.
- Large volumes of stormwater getting into the sewerage system, resulting in heavily diluted sewage discharging through maintenance holes and other overflow points.
When this occurs, it can affect you and your home. To help keep you safe, we want you to:
- Be aware of what may happen and what you may see during wet weather.
- Understand how you can prepare your home, in case of a weather event.
- Should a wet weather event occur, we want you to take the appropriate steps, depending on the impact.
Understand what happens during an overflow
Our wastewater network is designed to take minor additional flows during wet weather, however during storms, cyclones and heavy rain, our wastewater network can be overloaded with large volumes of stormwater.
When the rain is heavy enough to overwhelm the stormwater network, spilling over into the wastewater network, it can cause overflows.
This means you may see wastewater overflowing at designated overflow points along the network, in some cases they occur at maintenance holes or on private property. These wet weather overflows are highly diluted as they are mostly rainwater.
Find out what to do if there’s an overflow in your house, yard or street:
Follow the below steps to prepare your home ahead of wet weather.
STEP 1: Check your ORG
What is an ORG? An ORG (Overflow Relief Gully) is a grate at ground level that is found outside your property (sometimes near your laundry).
Why is it important? The ORG helps prevent any sewage overflows into your home. If there is a sewer blockage, the cover of the ORG should either pop off or upwards to release excess pressure and direct sewage away from your home.
Steps to take:
- Make sure grate is loose and not blocked
- Remove any objects, including pot plants, from the top of the ORG grate
- Make sure the ORG sits up high enough that stormwater does not drain into it.
- Make sure your downpipes aren't connected to your ORG.
- If your ORG is too low, or your downpipes are connected to the ORG then please call a licensed plumber.
What to do during a weather event
When an incident occurs, it’s important to:
- Check out our water outage map.
- Report any water or wastewater faults online.
- Update your phone number in My Account so we can send you SMS alerts when needed.
- Follow us on Facebook and stay up to date with any major event news.
- To rectify any damage caused by water or wastewater overflows, simply follow the steps outlined in our property damage guide.