Hundreds of visitors to a Blue Mountains community have been evacuated, while food and emergency supplies have been airlifted in, after a landslide closed the only road into the town.
The road in and out of the Megalong Valley has all but been destroyed following intense rainfall on Friday that washed the thoroughfare away.
Traumatised businesses in the community are also facing losses in the tens of thousands of dollars with no time frame on when the road will reopen.
A police operation began on Sunday night to take up to 200 residents and visitors out of the town through a private property, with a bulldozer clearing a path.
Food, fuel and essential supplies began being dropped into the valley via a Rural Fire Service helicopter on Monday afternoon.
More than 200 residents remained cut off within the valley on Monday evening.
Following a geotechnical assessment of the road by the Blue Mountains City Council, work has begun to redirect water away from the site.
The assessment identified that if more water gets underneath the road, further landslides could occur.
Authorities are exploring options for creating a new route along Megalong Road, but there is no indication on when access will return.
The owner of a local vineyard and wedding venue, Emma MacMahon, said she was unsure how much the loss of access would cost her business.
However, she said the financial implications would be significant for the region if the road could not be reopened shortly.
“We usually have hundreds of guests at the cellar door every weekend … so losing hundreds and hundreds of visitors every week is financially enormous,” she said.
Ms MacMahon employs 22 people at the venue and is in the process of rehoming half a dozen weddings that had been booked at the vineyard.
She said she was at a loss as to what to do with her employees.
“We are coming into our busy time of the cellar door with autumn and I don’t know what will happen with the staff,” she said.
“I would hope these is some kind of government assistance but we can’t employ people if we don’t have customers.”
Kim Draguns’ vineyard in the valley would traditionally attract more than 200 people across the weekend.
She said she had already had to cancel upcoming events due to the landslide.
“We are completely closed off and won’t have customers for sometime,” she said.
“We cancelled a 50th birthday party on Saturday night. We have a large scale dinner in two weeks that we have also just cancelled.”
Disaster funding has been released for the Blue Mountains shire, with eligible residents able to apply for grants to replace essential household items and fix structural problems with their homes.
However, Blue Mountains City Council Mayor Mark Greenhill believed the funding should go further than repairing damage to ensure businesses in the valley were not lost.
“You can imagine that [the community is] incredibly frustrated, they’re traumatised … it’s a very tense situation,” she said.
“There are people unable to get to their jobs at the moment, that has a cost impact, there are businesses down there that are unable to get customers in.”
Search for permanent solution
In 2021, the road into the valley was damaged following flooding, resulting in the community being cut off for seven days.
It took several weeks before full access was returned.
The Blue Mountains local government has contacted the Lithgow City Council to discuss finding another route into the valley.
Ms MacMahon said it was crucial another road into the community was built given the recent closures.
“This road just highlights the vulnerability of Megalong with one road in and one road out … having another option would be a miracle,” she said.
According to Ms Draguns, many business owners were only just starting to get back on their feet after the last landslide.
“People are just struggling to come to terms with the fact it has happened so soon and businesses are really affected,” she said.
“We have been recovering for the last couple of years from the last damage that we had.
“The road has never been repaired completely.”