Send us your photos of sodden Canberra
Flooding caused damage to streets and homes across the ACT as emergency services were called to properties with water damage in Higgins, Hawker, Weston, Latham, Holt and Calwell.
ACT State Emergency Service volunteers were also called to the National Zoo and Aquarium, to drain water from an animal enclosure, and a number of passengers at the Canberra Airport were stuck in transit because of temporarily delayed flights.
''There were trees down on the road, there was a metre of water across some of the airport roads,'' Canberra Airport managing director Stephen Byron said last night.
''The airport's never really been closed before ... I wouldn't call them soaking rains, I'd call them ferocious.''
The closure of Majura Road also caused traffic delays as it was blocked from the north and south.
The Bureau of Meteorology recorded about 60mm of rain for Canberra city from 9am to late last night. One-third of that came between 7pm and 7.30pm.
Regional NSW was also swamped with reports of flooding in Wagga Wagga and people set to be evacuated from homes in Coonamble. Before yesterday's Canberra deluge, the Bureau recorded about 288mm for the ACT over spring, making it the wettest since 1983. More rain is predicted for today and is expected to hang around into next week, while the ACT's dam levels are headed towards the 100 per cent mark.
But the drought-breaking rain is causing problems for Canberrans, with many industries struggling to cope with the kind of conditions that just a few months ago seemed beyond imagination.
Construction work has been brought to a grinding halt, leaving many casual contract labourers out of work and out of pocket in the lead-up to the financially-stressful Christmas period.
For more on this story, including comments from construction workers affected by the rains, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.
Source: The Canberra Times
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