Year In Review: Floods tear through the region

Rochester was left decimated by the second major flood in the space of 11 years after the Campaspe River tore through the town on October 13.

The SES performed 160 rescues in the town as the waters rose.

SES Rochester controller Tim Williams said the whole town was inundated.

“Every single house in town will have water,” he said.

The flood surpassed the devastating levels of 2011 and sadly turned deadly, with 71-year-old Kevin Wills found dead in his flooded backyard on October 15.

“Tragically, a man has passed away in Rochester,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.

“I know how close-knit the Rochester community is, and this will be impacting you all. Our hearts go out to you all.”

Residents were evacuated to relief centres in Echuca and Bendigo.

Resident Eliza Watson described the flood as a “swirling, rushing monster”.

“Last time it didn’t get close to the front door,” she said.

“There are no words to describe the monstrosity or destruction of that flood, it was unfathomable. And we know there is a heck of a lot of work ahead of us as we ride the rollercoaster that will be the clean-up.”

She said she had faith the town would once again pull together in the face of disaster.

“We are an incredibly strong community,” she said.

“We saw it in the number of people filling and loading sandbags, in the people walking through freezing water to rescue those stranded in their houses, in the offers of support and accommodation. So many ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

“The generosity of the Rochy community lifts you up when you feel like you cannot move. But this was a big, traumatic experience for many and I think it’s going to take a lot of talking, a lot of hands-on helping and a lot of time to recover.”

Rochester farmer Toby Acocks said the amount of support from people across the district had been “overwhelming”.

“I’d like to thank each and every person who has messaged or called over the last couple of days,” he said.

“It’s been bloody hectic here but almost overwhelming with the amount of support.”

Mr Acocks said the original home on his family’s property, the Forres homestead, was inundated for the first time in 170 years.

“We have been surrounded by water but our house has escaped by perhaps 100mm,” he said.

Mr Acocks said the family dog went missing for a time during the height of the floods.

“We thought we’d lost our Jack Russell Roxy to the flooding, but when I went to fuel a generator running our freezers, she rose from the waters to reinvigorate a demoralised household,” he said.

In town, resident Diana O’Brien said the sunny weather was helping to lift spirits as the clean-up began.

“The sunshine has been a great help and motivator,” she said.

Ms O’Brien lives on the western side of Rochester, more than a kilometre from the bridge over the Campaspe.

“A surge at about 12.30am rose the water levels again, submerging my deck and front room,” she said.

“My house is now like a houseboat, water is slowly receding.

“I’m thinking of everyone whose houses are affected, such a huge clean-up ahead.”

The town’s residents pulled together to begin the clean-up, which continues today.

It is the same story in Echuca, where the Campaspe River peaked at 96.25m on October 16, a higher level than initially forecast and above the levels recorded in January 2011.

The water had already left a trail of destruction in its wake in Rochester, and now it had hit Echuca.

A sandbag wall had been built down the middle of Campaspe Esplanade to try and hold back the impending torrent, but it was not enough.

Water stormed through over Ogilvie Ave, flooding the area behind the wall and gushing into yards and homes.

Residents in the area had worked for days to protect their homes, but the floodwaters got in regardless. The water was a behemoth that could not be denied.

Dwaine Mckay waded from his home through waist-deep water to survey the scene and inspect the sandbag wall.

He lives on McBride Place, just off Campaspe Esplanade, and he spoke about how he and his neighbours worked all through the night, fighting to keep the floodwaters at bay.

“We have been getting as many sandbags as we can,” Mr Mckay said.

“In the middle of the night we lost a wall. Thankfully, one of the guys just happened to be walking over there when it was going down and we were able to pop it back up.

“We got leftover sandbags from one house and dug out their sandpit. We got other spare bags from other houses so we could make it stronger because the water was coming through, it wasn’t going to be held back.”

At one point, it looked like they had done enough to stop the water. But then the deluge came.

“We worked all night and we thought that we had done it,” Mr Mckay said.

“In the morning, just as the sun came up, that is when it (the water) came over Ogilvie Ave and it was pretty much all over.”

Before the surge came through, there was less than an inch of water on the non-river side of the sandbag wall. But Mr Mckay said within 15 minutes of the torrent hitting, it had reached waist height.

“It went through like a freight train,” he said.

“Just to see that water coming through from Ogilvie Ave was bloody devastating. We worked our a***s off and that pretty much broke us all. We worked so hard to keep it up.”

At that point, he said emergency crews told them there was nothing else they could do. Mr Mckay told his neighbour and his wife it was time to leave.

Thankfully, his house was okay.

Mr Mckay bought the property off his grandparents and said floodwater had never gotten inside. This time, water got into his yard, but fortunately not inside the house.

He was one of the lucky ones.

Other houses nearby had been inundated. Water not only surrounded the homes, but had breached sandbags and got inside as well.

Emergency crews were using pumps to pump the water back over the wall, but the damage had been done.

The walls of sandbags down Campaspe Esplanade and across the river on McKenzie and Eyre streets provided a line of defence that wasn’t there during the 2011 floods, and Mr Mckay said they undoubtedly made a difference.

“We would be stuffed without it. All of these houses would be well under, well under,” he said.

“You could add another 50cm through here, easy. It would be through the houses and be absolute devastation.”

With a huge mass of water literally on their doorsteps, Mr Mckay could not speak highly enough of the work done by residents, volunteers and emergency services to help protect the neighbourhood.

Before the Campaspe River burst its banks, Mr Mckay had spent hours at the sandbagging station at Kerferd St in Echuca alongside dozens of others helping people in the community prepare.

“This is Echuca,” he said.

“I was born and bred here. This is what Echuca is, this is what we do. When it hits the fan, we get together and we get it fixed. Echuca has always been a tight community.

“The army and the CFA guys have done an awesome job. If they didn’t put this extra backing up, the wall would be gone.

“If you don’t have neighbours like these people, we wouldn’t have got it done.”

Unlike the Campaspe, the Murray River moved like a slow monster as it crept towards a peak in Echuca-Moama.

The peak of 94.98m AHD arrived on October 26, later and slightly higher than when Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said “we’ve seen a peak at Echuca on the Murray”.

With the peak confirmed, it was the third highest flood in Echuca’s history, only behind 1870 (96.20m) and 1867 (95.34m).

“Have a good day,” Joe Case shouted out to us from behind the corrugated iron fence that protects his family home.

It’s hard to believe that someone like Joe could remain positive enough to wish someone well as the water closed in around him.

Communicating with Joe from the Moama levee in Chanter St, we discovered he was helping protect his family home, which his brother Dennis Case lived in.

Dennis, who arrived later, has lived in the house since he was eight years old.

“It was my mother’s house and my grandmother’s house before that,” he said.

“Joe has a bad back. He really shouldn’t be helping, but that’s what family does.”

Dennis revealed he was also struggling with his own health concerns. He has been diagnosed with dementia and arthritis.

A true inspiration, Dennis said he would not allow his health conditions to get in the way of protecting his home.

Remarkably, the water had not yet entered the house and the brothers had not yet lost their spirit.

A houseboat was moored right behind their house.

Sandbags surrounded the perimeter of the house, while small pipes along the fence line attempted to pump the water from inside the fence.

Despite their efforts to keep the water out, water was being dumped on to their side of the levee just one house away.

Dennis said a friend who had initially loaned him a pump recently asked for it back.

“I just broke down crying when they asked for it back,” he said.

“Thankfully someone else came to the rescue and provided us with another.”

Dennis remembers the floods in 1993 surrounding his house, much like this time.

Back then they were able to prevent the water from entering the house and they were holding on to the hope that this time around will be the same.

A beauty parlour in Meninya St, Moama, showed its support for the community by displaying a message of hope in its shopfront window.

While Inhale and Exhale was closed until further notice, its message was visible for all to see.

“We’ve got this Echuca-Moama. Stay safe. Stay strong.”

And stay strong, we will.