Road to nowhere: Hundreds of families trying to flee NSW’s south coast sit in deadlocked traffic as cars are halted because of fires
- The scramble comes during one of the biggest evacuations in Australian history
- Traffic was moving along a major highway at 40km/h, according to one person
- One woman expressed concerns that some evacuees could run out of fuel
Hundreds of families fleeing from blazes are stuck in gridlock traffic in thick smoke as grass fires force major South Coast highways to close.
The scramble comes during one of the biggest evacuations in Australian history as the NSW Rural Fire Service told people to flee the 250km stretch from Bateman’s Bay down to the state border.
Locals and holiday makers fleeing bushfires around Cooma, south west of Bateman’s Bay, spent hours sitting in traffic on Thursday afternoon as traffic ground to a halt.
Traffic piles up as locals and holidaymakers flee bushfires on the South Coast of New South Wales
One Twitter user said the traffic along the Monaro Highway, between Cooma and Canberra, was ‘bumper-to-bumper and travelling at 40-60km/h in a 100km/h zone’.
‘Twenty-five kilometers of deadlock traffic on a single mountain road in the worst fire season in recorded history,’ Tweeted another evacuee.
One woman on Twitter said the traffic was ‘barely moving’ just past Bredbo on the Monaro Highway, south of Canberra.
She also expressed concerns that some who had been stranded in small towns encircled by fire were running out of fuel, water, power and had no means of communication.
One Twitter user posted a photo of the traffic on the highway between Cooma and Canberra on Thursday afternoon
Traffic grinds to a halt on a major South Coast highway surrounded by toxic plumes of smoke
‘The main issues for evacuees on the Far South Coast is access to fuel, lack of power and communications to know where they should go and what’s happening, limited access to water and rest stops,’ she wrote.
‘Many toilets and drinkable water outlets on the road out aren’t working.’
The Snowy Mountains Highway between the Princes Highway and the Monaro highway was closed in both directions on Thursday afternoon due to grass fires but has since been reopened.
Catastrophic conditions which fanned blazes on the New South Wales south coast and in eastern Victoria on Wednesday are set to return within 48 hours as temperatures soar into the 40s.
Another tourist leave zone was declared for the Shoalhaven late on Thursday, for an area stretching from Burrill Lake north to Nowra, with residents warned to be aware and prepare for worsening conditions.