Water being pumped off highway as emergency services work to open both lanes

Traffic in the area remains congested, with only one lane open in each direction, following on from Monday's flooding.

The highway was severed on Monday afternoon after flood waters covered the road, however, as waters receded late Monday evening, police were able to open one lane in each direction at around 8pm Monday.

Chief Inspector Glenn Cogdell, from Chifley Police District, who is overseeing the city's emergency response to the flooding said pumps and other heavy machinery are on site at the Great Western Highway, near Stockland Drive, trying to clear water from the road surface.

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"What they are doing is basically getting rid of the water that is on the highway, it's just sitting there in a puddle so they are going to try and pump it out so we can open up all the lanes of the highway," he said.

He said there was some misinformation circulating about the machinery, and fears the highway would reclose because of the water, but said the machinery was there simply to get rid of the water.

"There is a water pump on site, pumping the water away, and possibly also an excavator will be brought in to trench the water away and flow it back into the Raglan Creek," he said.

Inspector Cogdell said the works were underway as of Tuesday morning.

He also reminded drivers to utilise only official sources of information such as the Western Advocate, Live Traffic and Bathurst Regional Council's web and Facebook pages for information on road closures.

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