General News
5 March, 2026
$135m in flood repairs
CASSOWARY Coast Regional Council has been updated with a detailed internal report on the ongoing effects and costs of three severe weather events which caused at least $80 million total damage to infrastructure across the region.
At its February meeting last week, the report presented by council’s director of infrastructure services David Goodman said the region was still recovering from Tropical Cyclone Jasper more than two years ago.
Since then, a tropical low in February 2025 and a monsoonal trough in December 2025 – which both brought severe flooding – have resulted in major restoration programs and continuing emergency works.
But the report highlighted that while council had originally planned a $40 million recovery program for the immediate repairs of Cyclone Jasper, the cumulative assessment of all three events – including ‘Build Back Better’ (or Betterment) costs to make Cassowary Coast roads more resilient – has brought the total long-term infrastructure commitment closer to the $135 million mark.
The report said in terms of Jasper recovery, “significant progress has been achieved in delivering restoration of essential public assets (REPA) road works, with final completion forecast in the coming weeks.”
Recovery for that event alone involved about 3000 separate damage sites, 6000 square metres of sealed road repairs, and 450 kilometres of formation grading.
Assessments from the February 2025 low, which caused $23 million in damage, are complete, with the majority of restoration activities scheduled for this year’s dry season. The report said council remains in the “counter-disaster operations and emergency works phase” following the December 2025 monsoon trough, and damage assessments – estimated at $14 million, including at Bingil Bay – are currently underway.
Council noted that while reconstruction from the 2023 and early 2025 events is well underway, the addition of the December 2025 damage has extended the projected timeline for full network restoration into late 2026.
“Approximately half of the overall program works have been completed,” according to the council report.
The vast majority of the costs are being recovered through the joint State and Federal Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).
Council’s 2025-26 budget has already allocated $22 million specifically for ongoing flood recovery works. “Landslip remediation and betterment works will continue through 2026,” the report said. Council says it is also shifting from ‘repair and resilience’, through the DRFA Betterment Fund, which allows infrastructure to be rebuilt to a higher standard than its original state to prevent repeat damage.
As an example of the “betterment” focus, council says it is prioritising the use of in-situ stabilisation and concrete floodways on frequently damaged unsealed roads.
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