Bay and Basin residents could be dealing with traffic disruptions for up to 10 months while a sink hole on The Wool Road at Old Erowal Bay is repaired.
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Shoalhaven Council's director of city services, Carey McIntyre, said while repairs were expected to take eight to 12 weeks, the process of designing repairs, engaging a contractor, finding the funding and mobilising the contractor could take the time frame out to eight to 10 months.
Speaking at the extraordinary council meeting on Tuesday, June 12, Mr McIntyre said the sink hole appeared where two culverts took The Wool Road over a creek.
That area flooded during last week's torrential rain, with water running across the road and one of the culverts collapsing.
That collapse "created a gap between the top of the culvert and the bottom of the road pavement", causing the area under the road and the pavement to erode and collapse.
"The damage to the crossing is extensive," Mr McIntyre said as he put an early estimate of repair costs at $1.2 million.
Council engineers had been joined by geotechnical engineers to investigate the best mode of repairing the damage.
They were also looking at options for providing a temporary crossing at the location "if we can", Mr McIntyre said.
One option, he said, was to remove the pavement to see how strong the culverts were, and see if it was possible to put a temporary pavement over them to create a temporary crossing.
Council staff were also looking at options for temporary crossings either upstream or downstream of The Wool Road to alleviate traffic issues.
"Neither of those are easy solutions," Mr McIntyre said, as they could involve private property, or interfere with pedestrian bridge.
He said a range of agencies and organisations were working together to provide the community with transport links.
Recovery information at Sanctuary Point
Many of those agencies, including the NSW Reconstruction Authority, Department of Transport, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, Legal Aid, the Red Cross and Salvation Army will join council engineers and officials providing recovery information at the Sanctuary Point Community Centre from 11am to 6pm tomorrow - Thursday, June 13.
A free barbecue will be operating from 4pm.
Mr McIntyre said many in the community had swung into action to address issues caused by the road closure.
The Rural Fire Service station was on the western side of the sink hole, but volunteers had parked a fire truck on the eastern side so they could access it via the footbridge in the event of an emergency.
The Education Department and NSW Transport were also working with local transport providers to mitigate the road closure's impacts on students and others.
Buses were taking alternative routes through Tomerong, Mr McIntyre said, and there were discussions about possible shuttle buses running between Sanctuary Point, Huskisson and Vincentia.
While the Wool Road sinkhole was the biggest of the problems caused by last week's flash flooding, it was not the only issue.
Mr McIntyre said road damage and potholes had "increased significantly".
There was a significant sinkhole on Matron Porter Drive at Milton, he said, along with a several smaller ones including Crookhaven Parade in Currarong and Mortimer Road in Falls Creek.
There had been desheeting at Naval College Road in Vincentia, a recent spray seal on Fall Road at Falls Creek had been stripped off, and many other roads had been damaged.
Footpaths had been washed away, and there had also been damage to beach access tracks and drains.
