A burst water pipe that went unnoticed ‘for around 6-hours’ has shut parts of the Derwent Valley Council offices.
Derwent Valley Mayor Michelle Dracoulis said staff arrived for work on Monday morning to find the office flooded after a water pipe burst inside a second-floor wall on Sunday night – its fourth major flood damage in the past two years.
The substantial amount of water caused damage to ground floor offices and the council’s customer service area, both of which have since been closed.
“Thanks to the hard work being done by those who rushed to help from early Monday morning, great progress is being made with the affected areas having already been stripped and alternative arrangements being put in place to ensure continuity of service to the community,” Dracoulis said.
“We have people working on restoring technology that was impacted and liaising with our insurance company to get the damage assessed and have us up and running again quickly.”
Many staff members will work from home this week, with the customer team moved to a temporary area at the rear of Circle Street.
Council meetings, which are currently being held in the social rooms due to a leaky roof at the courthouse, may be moved to the RSL club function room in Tank St.
“With this latest incident, that may have to change for our next couple of meetings to accommodate the other moves required until we can get the building back up and operational on a permanent basis,” Dracoulis said.
The council expect to make further announcements about its reopening and council meetings later this week.
