Submissions ‘flood in’ for inquiry

The panel, a mix of metropolitan and regional members, can expect further input from the Northern Victoria electorate as a series of community information sessions are planned for June.

Sudmissions can be made at https://new.parliament.vic.gov.au/get-involved/inquiries/floodinquiry/submissions/?tab=panel-make-a-submission, by contacting [email protected] or by writing to the Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee, Parliament House, Spring Street, EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002.

The Environment and Planning Committee will complete its report by June 30, 2024, on the state’s preparedness for and response to Victoria’s major flooding event of October 2022.

Among the subjects to be considered are causes of and contributors to the flood event, adequacy and effectiveness of early warning systems; resourcing of the State Emergency Service; implementation and effectiveness of the 2016 Victorian Floodplain Management Strategy in relation to the Flood Event; along with location, funding, maintenance and effectiveness of engineered structures, such as floodwalls, rural levees and culverts, as a flood-mitigation strategy.

The committee will begin its public hearings on August 23 at Rochester, before a second sessions is held at Echuca the very next day and then at Shepparton and Seymour on September 13 and 14.

The inquiry’s final hearings are in Melbourne on October 11 and 12, ironically almost a year to the day since the flood event.

Here are some excerpts of some submissions that have already been tabled by the committee.

Amanda Logie, manager, Rochester Community House: Unlike 2011 our community had time, time to prepare, but no amount of time could have prepared us for what can only be described as Armageddon decimating our town and the surrounding farmland.

The lead-up to this event had many similarities to the 2011 flood event — catchments upstream at capacity, heavy rainfall, although this time the Murray River was also in minor flood. Our community was on edge as the rain kept falling and the catchments exceeded breaking point.

The indications and estimations of the impending flood event given at the town meetings (of which two were held in the week prior) were that it would be at worst 100mm higher than 2011.

Our memories are short, they got it wrong in 2011 and history was about to repeat itself as they got it wrong again 11 short years later in 2022.

There have been many differences between these two flood events.

The severity of the 2022 event far exceeded anyone’s expectations and our community cannot go through this again.

The mental health of our community would not cope with such an event.

There needs to be significant changes to the management and structure of the Lake Eppalock catchment system.

Our community is broken, the houses and the people and the recovery from this event will take years, we estimate three at a minimum.

We are now FIVE months on and the LGA flood recovery officer positions have still not been filled.

Funding while in some areas has been quick to be distributed, has not for mental health support and our community is suffering because of this.

Leanne Borger: The information that Rochester received in relation to river heights changed so drastically at the last minute that it almost made the decision to leave harder than it had been in 2011.

Had we known that the water would come up so high, we could have saved more items and avoided a night-time evacuation.

In the time after the water receded, the flow of information was inconsistent, with dozens of rumours about how the event actually unfolded going around.

At no stage were we sent specific details about what happened to cause the severity of the October 15 event.

Jess Jeffrey: At the time of the floods our family had all of our belongings in a storage unit at Rochester.

We had very little warning that Rochester was going to flood and we frantically tried to save as much as we could before water covered the roads into Rochester.

We spent days not knowing how bad floodwaters were and if the storage facility had been affected and we never received any information on whether water had cleared from the roads and ended up just taking a chance a going to Rochester.

Our storage unit had filled with knee-high floodwaters and we lost furniture, homewares, toys, clothing, shoes, bedding and many other important essential items, we applied for state funding and were rejected and we looked at applying for the federal funding, but we weren’t eligible because the affected property wasn’t our residential address.

After a reporter from the Guardian published our story we were contacted by state government services and we received state funding. They were going to contact us to help us get the federal funding, but we never heard from them again, we now finally have a rental but don’t have enough money to replace what we lost or purchase the essentials that we will need.

Cynthia Williams: My submission is in regard to emergency response from a health perspective to the town of Rochester.

I am a registered nurse/ wound consultant. I was affected both personally and professionally during the major flood event.

I contacted my team (I have a private wound consultancy business) and advised them that I was going to Rochester to set up an emergency clinic inside the pharmacy to see whoever needed help.

I was able to inform an Echuca Regional Health manager of the situation and immediately we had 100 per cent support from ERH. The emergency clinic ran over four days and saw 40 patients. Many gumboot injuries and infected wounds.

I would like to see a 4WD bus set up ready to go in times of these emergencies.

The township of Rochester should have had a face-to-face medical response within days of this crisis. They should not have had to ask for support.

My future recommendation would be to have a doctor, emergency nurse, and wound nurses to support in these situations.

As a past first responder, this was something that was lacking.

The appreciation from the community for our assistance was overwhelming.

The town will flood again. A medical emergency team should be considered for these events.

Fay Wolfe: The Vic Emergency Services app is useless. The information is 24 hours old before we receive it. The damage has already happened. We needed to evacuate twice. In real life emergency situations the status quo changes rapidly.

I believe Rochester needs Lake Eppalock’s wall changed, so there is the capacity to release large volumes of water when a large rain event in the catchment area is forecasted. Having the infrastructure to release larger volumes of water also impacts all the way to the mouth of the Murray River where it enters the sea.

A slow release opposed to a major flood must be more beneficial to all. Since Eppalock agricultural irrigation water, water shares have been bought from the farmer and the Campaspe on system has been bulldozed in Rochester has had two major flooding events. Food for thought and you can’t grow food without water.

The water needs to be owned by the government, water should not be a money-making commodity where the Catchment Management Authority (CMA) or Goulburn Murray Water (GMW) are not able to release water because they do not own it.

I cannot go through this again.

Chris Sanders: In the days leading up to the flood in Rochester we were told we could not close the school even when floodwaters were meant to arrive that very night.

Community meetings on the Wednesday night predicted flood levels much lower than 2011 and then the following night we were told it would be close to 2011 levels.

We prepared the school based on that information, which included sandbagging the admin block and raising all furniture in the building.

The flood rose much higher than 2011 and the school was inundated with water throughout every building and went over all sandbagging efforts.

The initial clean up effort was shattering as we went into people’s houses and threw out their belongings, which included their family photos and prized possessions.

When we finally got permission to go on the school site our belongings had been packed in boxes with rubbish and often wet and mouldy from floodwater.

Though this was nothing compared to those in the community still items of personal value were misplaced and never found again.

Trying to teach students who have been living in caravans and tents for the last six months and having colleagues in the same situation has been emotionally draining and we are all so exhausted from the ongoing issues that having a flooded school and town brings.

Our principal has been trying to lead a school, while at the same time being a site manager for the school rebuild. The impact on student learning has been far greater than the two years of COVID-19 we experienced.

Jacinda Rasmussen: We were lucky, our house, in town survived. We had the worst “survivors guilt” and pushed ourselves to exhaustion for the next four weeks — ripping up carpets, preventing suicides; destroying people’s homes; throwing out their belongings; opening our home to all; cooking, cleaning and trying to survive and stay sane.

Our two teenage sons were pushed to breaking point — mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted and being exposed to a life we wish we could shelter them from.

My husband’s parents, brother and sister all lost their homes; as did the majority of our friends.

We were unable to work — my husband as a local primary school teacher and myself as a maternal and child health nurse.

Our five children, after two years of COVID-19 interrupting their school, were unable to complete another school year — being sent an hour away for schooling.

We look at the faces of our community and see the stress and exhaustion.

Please, with every fibre of your being, prevent this from happening again.

I am no “water specialist”, but cannot understand how Lake Eppalock cannot be kept below flood level and managed.

Jean Holmberg: In October my home was inundated with water, I live on the very west side of Rochester and I wrongly thought that my home would have been safe as I was not directly flooded in the 2011 floods.

When I built my home 20 years ago I went to the Campaspe Shire offices and viewed the previous flood maps, all confirming that I was not building in a “flood zone”.

I felt that where I was building was safe, how far wrong could I be?

I had a foot of water enter my home, my son and I had sandbagged on the Friday, but this was just a pointless effort.

Apparently the water that caused the damaged to the west side of Rochester came from the river flooding into old irrigations channels, these either being filled in or not maintained causing the water to gush towards Rochester.

I have lived in this district on and off my whole life, I have seen lots of floods, I have been evacuated from school through the 1970s, I have never seen it this bad, in fact as a child floods were seen as exciting, the river came up and we had a few days off school.

Not this time, this time it was devastating, I’m not an engineer or scientist therefore I do not have the answer, is it global warming or is it mismanagement of our waterways?

Hopefully this inquiry will provide us with the answer to give myself and many others the closure that we need.