The application for the escalation of Walcha’s Natural Disaster Category now sits with the Office of Emergency Management in the Justice Department of the NSW Government according to Walcha Mayor Eric Noakes.
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" All information and statistics were gathered by the Local Land Services (LLS) and passed to the Department of Primary Industries (DPI)," he said.
"They asses this and send it to the Office of Emergency Management (OEM)."
Mr Noakes said he spoke with the OEM a fortnight ago and they expected to have an outcome by last Monday, however, as of yesterday, there was still no news.
When the Walcha News spoke to the mayor yesterday, he said the OAM had advised him there was still no decision, but an announcement was imminent.
While ever there is not a 'no' there is hope
- Eric Noakes
"While ever there is not a 'no' there is hope," he said.
"The system they use to calculate the outcome is apparently thorough and uses matrices etc. and will give a definitive answer.
"If the numbers do not work out, it is the end of the process, and there are no grants. If they do work out, it then goes to the Federal Government where it goes through the Home Affairs Office and right up to the Prime Minister for signing off.
"As I understand it there is no appeal process if the application is rejected at any stage."
Following the 'worst local storm in living memory' on December 20, the Walcha Local Government Area was declared a Natural Disaster Area Category B.
"This means that Council can apply for funding to help in their cleanup and primary producers can access concessional interest loans and transport subsidies for removal of stock off affected land (basically the same as a drought)," Mr Noakes said.
Following a survey of those affected by Local Land Services in January, Walcha Council is seeking an escalation to a Category C or Category D disaster.
"The terms 'catastrophic' and 'widespread' are used to describe these events," Mr Noakes said.