Paradise Dam and Cyclone Kirrily

Update 1 – Wednesday, 24 January 2024, 11:02am

Sunwater is prepared for the impacts of Cyclone Kirrily and is closely monitoring our assets across the Burnett and Lower Mary regions.

We will be operating on a 24/7 roster over the coming days and will continue to work with the Bundaberg, North and South Burnett regional councils and their local disaster management groups to keep communities informed.

Paradise Dam, near Bundaberg, is safe and Sunwater will continue to operate the dam in line with its Emergency Action Plan.

Our decisions in relation to the dam have always been about protecting lives and livelihoods.

The completion of the essential works to lower the dam wall in 2021 reduced the risk of dam failure to a 1 in 5000-year event.

Prior to this, the dam failure risk was a 1 in 200-year event, such as the community experienced in 2013.

The dam is not designed for flood mitigation purposes. It is designed to fill and then safely spill water once it reaches full capacity.

We will provide notifications regarding outflows from Paradise Dam outflows and our other water storages in the region.

We remind the community to check the Bundaberg and North Burnett local disaster management group disaster dashboards for information on emergency news, evacuations, road closures, and power outages.

We urge communities surrounding and downstream of Paradise Dam stay informed and prepare themselves for Cyclone Kirrily.

River levels and rainfall conditions can be monitored at bom.gov.au.

Paradise Dam levels: http://bit.ly/ParadiseStorageLevels or download the Sunwater App

Bundaberg Regional Council Disaster Dashboard: http://disaster.bundaberg.qld.gov.au/

North Burnett Regional Council Disaster Dashboard: http://emergency.northburnett.qld.gov.au/