We've had staff on the ground since the early hours of Saturday morning. Our priority has been on getting roads reopened, clearing blockages and removing debris and silt from our creeks and culverts right across the city. We have been opening beaches gradually as the sea conditions improved and we have been removing debris and rubbish on the sand.

Since Saturday morning, Council's Customer Service team have taken 1460 calls - a 60 per cent increase on the usual number of calls we'd receive in the same timeframe. Residents have been asking for advice and information that'll assist them in the post-flood clean-up.

We saw almost double the number of customers take materials to Whytes Gully tip (the Wollongong Waste and Resource Recovery Park) on Sunday, and almost a 190 per cent increase in the number of people going to the tip to dispose of waste on Monday and Tuesday.

After we shared details of an additional on-call waste collection for flood-affected residents, Remondis' Call Centre on Monday took more than 1100 requests for kerbside collections, with more than 600 identified as urgent kerbside collection.

Right now, we're assessing Council's roads and areas of concern for potential landslip and ensuring our pedestrian routes are safe. We're working as fast as we can to get services and spaces back to normal, removing waste and debris, and we've brought in additional support for Council's hard-working staff.

At the same time, we're working to assess the damage to Council's critical infrastructure and any potential impact on buildings and other assets Council manages on behalf of our community.

We're grateful to the Federal and State governments for their Disaster Declaration as it opens up the city to much-needed support and funding that will help all of us get back on our feet quicker, and allow Council to address urgent works sooner.

We anticipate it will be about three months until we can get a complete picture of what this rain event has meant from an environmental and physical assets point of view. We know for some residents, the impact will last far longer.

We're a city that's prone to flash flooding thanks to our proximity to the escarpment. The tides - like the king tide we had on Saturday morning - also play a role in how stormwater behaves during a storm event. With climate change, we're likely to see events like this happen with more frequency.

These are all reasons why, since the 1998 flood, Council is continually investing in stormwater management infrastructure. Our draft budget for the next 4 years sets aside $26 million for stormwater infrastructure. Right now, our expert geotechnical and floodplain staff are on the ground collecting data about this most recent event and, over the coming weeks, they'll use this information to analyse how the existing infrastructure performed, and inform future flood planning and modelling for the city.

Whether it's community members supporting one another, SES volunteers and emergency services personnel working tirelessly, or Council staff focussed on clean up, it has been a mammoth effort from everyone in our community.

Greg Doyle, Wollongong City Council General Manager