Fitzroy River Flooding @ Willare.

Fitzroy Crossing Bridge Yesterday (image stolen from FB)



Cheers
Greg

Will be interesting if it has survived and getting it useful for road-trains. Maybe the Army will get in some temporary bridge building practice.

The old low-level crossing survived many floods including the one back in the early 70's that went over the banks.

Just need to re-build a road through the Fossil Downs side (what's left of that will be gone).

I've been keeping an eye on this, as I have a nephew who was hoping to do the Kimberley this year. As mentioned in another recent thread, Facebook area-specific groups contain often useful, to-to-date information. This was on the GRR group this morning. Somewhere on FB I saw a press release from the WA Minister a couple of days ago, detailing their plans and timetable.

"Our crews are now working on the middle (and last) damaged sections of Great Northern Highway between Derby and Broome.

Works at the Willare and Cockatoo Creek ends were completed last week with temporary gravel access roads built until more permanent repairs can be undertaken in the dry season.

Crews have been working in some very challenging conditions with heavy rainfall as you can see. Initially, the road will be reopened under a stage one-way traffic operation before we can make the road wider for two-lane traffic. We anticipate being able to reopen soon and will keep the public and our key stakeholders informed when that does happen.

Barges have now arrived on site at Fitzroy Crossing. These first barges will be able to take people and light vehicles, but once operational, we will look at scaling up capacity.

Heavy rainfall has fallen in the region once again with the river levels rising to those experienced in December 2022. Once the levels recede, we will continue to work through the logistics around the landings and barge operation.

If you are using the roads within the western Kimberley region, please exercise caution as many animals have been displaced and are seeking refuge near roads. Please slow down and take care.

Subscribe to our webpage to stay up to date with the latest news ?? https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/kimberley-flood

Visit the travel map for road condition and closure information - https://travelmap.mainroads.wa.gov.au/Home/Map "

Clickable link - Kimberley Flood Response - for the one that requires fiddling to open.

Thanks for that Peter, I made that post in a rush and missed the link glitch.

There's also a short video.

I see on the site linked by Briste/ Nomadic Navara that the road is sort of open

"The reopening will occur in the following stages:
Stage 1 - access to all vehicles from Thursday 9 February through to Sunday 12 February between the hours of 8am and 4pm only.
Stage 2 - escorted access to all vehicles from Monday 13 February one-way, twice daily:
Derby side (east) convoys leaving at 7.30am and 4.30pm
Broome side (west) convoys leaving at 8am and 5pm"

From my understanding that will allow you access from the west coast as far as Fitzroy but there isn’t any option to the fitzroy crossing until the barge is operational so still no access across the top?

The update that Rod posted went on to say:

"Significant rainfall has fallen in Fitzroy Crossing over the past week with the river levels now as high as levels from late December 2022.

Barge infrastructure has arrived at Fitzroy Crossing. Three ‘Punt’ type barges are onsite. These will be capable of taking one light vehicle or up to 14 people at a time across the Fitzroy River. Further details on when the barge will be operational will be released once we are in a position to review river levels and landing options for the service to operate from."