Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Grave concerns for local cemeteries - ABC Online


The Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery, Crows Nest Cemetery and Cabarlah Cemetery will remain closed until safe for the public to visit.


Councillor Ros Scotney says council needs to clear fallen trees, broken and loose branches, and repair sunken graves.


"Luckily there has been minimal damage to headstones."


"Staff are doing safety assessments daily and working extremely hard to get these things back in place, but the ground is so wet in some parts to get heavy machinery in would do more damage."


Councillor Scotney says older graves seem to have fared better than recently laid graves "because the soil has not had time to compact."


"They have been able to repair 20 graves, and there are another 30 to 50 to be done, but some of these are in areas they couldn't get the heavy machinery in."


"There will be no problem restoring the graves. People might see sand or soil around them, but they'll be brought back to normal."


"We're trying to rectify things as quickly as possible so when people go out there it won't cause any distress."


Councillor Scotney says help council workers received after the 2011 floods from inmates at the Westbrook Correctional Centre will be missed during this flood. The facility was closed midway through last year. "I'll make a political statement, we are desperately missing those boys, and I keep reminding the politicians that come here of that. They did so much work at the cemeteries. We are stretched to the limit with staff, and desperately missing those Westbrook boys!"


Council hopes the cemeteries will reopen by the end of the week. "We ask for patience and understanding, we're very aware of the sensitivity of this issue," Ros Scotney says.



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