Time stands still for those who remember the flood

Indeed, judging from the comments on the Katherine Times Facebook page yesterday, some people were not even aware of the clock.

The two steel wavy strips on the three post tower mark the height of the 1998 flood which devastated the town.

Who knew?

Well most long-term residents did but not so the newcomers.

The clock is slated for demolition by Katherine Town Council as it makes way for a $3.5 million upgrade for the town square, popularly known as 50 cent park.

Again judging from the response to that decision, there is little love for the clock, which is keeping pretty close to perfect time at the moment but sadly that has not always been the way.

The steel wavy strips, fixed either side of the tower, were to remind residents and visitors how high the water got around Australia Day in 1998 when most of the town was buried under water and a disaster was declared.

Pictures from the time, especially those from the air, show the town square was equally swamped by flood water when ex tropical cyclone Les dumped record amounts of rain in the catchment of the Katherine River.

It hardly seems possible today but work is still ongoing to build a series of levee banks in the town to hold smaller floods back.

As devastating as 1998 was, people were seriously alarmed when a second major flood arrived in 2006 - hardly one in a 100 year stuff.

But 1998 was seared into the minds of those who were here at the time and the wavy strips were one of the few reminders in the town of the biggest calamity to ever befall the town since it was settled and what to beware of happening again.

Recent wet seasons have hardly caused any alarm but long-time residents recognise a 1998 flood can happen quickly, and not ever 100 years, and there is nothing about Katherine today which has changed in the past 22 years to stop it.