Bird’s eye view: The Murchison bridge. Structural specialists are using a range of means, including drones, to inspect road infrastructure across flood-hit regions.
The Victorian Government says it will use all means necessary, including dinghies, drones and even divers, to assess the condition of hundreds of bridges and other vital transport infrastructure as part of its emergency road repair program.
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More than 300 bridges, culverts and other pieces of infrastructure will undergo structural assessments as part of the plan to get roads reopened and keep communities connected in the wake of floods, which have affected much of regional Victoria.
Structural specialists from the Department of Transport and other Big Build projects are making the inspections to ensure the structures can safely reopen to traffic after being hit by fast-moving floodwaters in the past fortnight.
In some instances, highly trained divers are being called upon to descend to the depths of major rivers and other waterways to inspect the footings and bases of bridges, while drones equipped with high-definition cameras are already being used to capture close-ups of hard-to-reach places.
In other instances, crews are boarding small inflatable dinghies to carry out in-person inspections of bridge piles and decks.
“From dinghies through to drone-mounted cameras, our hard-working crews are using everything at our disposal to get flood damaged roads re-opened as soon as possible,” Roads and Road Safety Minister Ben Carroll said.
“While we know there’s longer-term repairs to come, our emergency road repair blitz is ensuring that the communities hit hardest by these floods remain connected to vital supplies and services.”
Up and down: Structural specialists use a drone to review the integrity of the Murchison bridge beneath them after floods flowed through the town.
The government said more than 250 bridges across the state had undergone inspection, with a further 70 scheduled to be inspected as floodwaters subsided and emergency services deemed them safe for inspection.
Once the inspections are complete, crews will declare them safe to reopen to traffic or plan for longer-term repairs as required.
Mr Carroll also said the government’s $165 million emergency road repair blitz had helped reopen 523 roads and had crews working hard to patch more than 42,000 potholes, repair damaged road surfaces and clear tonnes of dirt and debris from roads.
