Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Australia: New Wave of Storms Brings New Flooding Havoc
Gary Tippet, Mark Russell, Natalie Craig, Genevieve Gannon
January 16, 2011
The Sydney Morning Herald
Patrick O'Toole, his wife Theresa and children Hayden, 6, and
Hannah, 2, are driven to safety in a front-end loader after the
Loddon River flooded their house at Bridgewater yesterday.
Patrick O'Toole, his wife Theresa and children Hayden, 6, and
Hannah, 2, are driven to safety in a front-end loader after the
Loddon River flooded their house at Bridgewater yesterday. Photo:
Pat Scala
UNDER brilliant blue skies, much of northern, western and central
Victoria slid beneath record murky brown floodwaters yesterday -
with even worse to come.
Four major rivers have affected an area spanning about a quarter
of the state. Towns as far apart as Horsham, 300 kilometres
north-west of Melbourne, and Rochester, 180 kilometres to its
north, were bracing last night for their worst-ever flooding.
More than a dozen other towns were threatened yesterday, cut off
or cut in half - many of which were still recovering from the
floods of September - and the number is likely to double over
coming days.
Rochester last night was running out of drinking water. The
Campaspe River is expected to reach 9.2 metres, surpassing levels
that inundated the town in 1956, and the entire population of 3000
has been told to evacuate to Echuca.
The local hospital's 65 patients were earlier evacuated, including
24 acute and aged care patients taken to Bendigo Hospital. The
State Emergency Service was predicting that eight in 10 houses
could go under water by early today. It warned the floodwaters
were not expected to recede for 48 hours.
By yesterday afternoon, more than 1000 properties across Victoria
had been submerged and the SES had responded to 5000 requests for
assistance. It had conducted more than 50 flood rescues, 30 of
which involved people in vehicles. A woman was rescued at 4am
yesterday after spending the night on her tractor at the tiny town
of Teddywaddy, north of Charlton.
SES director of operations Trevor White said 12 towns along the
Wimmera, Loddon, Avoca and Campaspe rivers had been issued with
evacuation advice yesterday and a similar number of communities
were likely to have to evacuate over the next few days.
They included Donald, Serpentine, Charlton, Durham Ox, Boort Lake,
Culgoa, Bridgewater and Carisbrook. Skipton was day cut in half
yesterday by the normally tiny Emu Creek.
Mr White warned that the worst of the flooding was yet to be felt.
''There are many, many people living in the smaller rural
communities that are likely to be impacted over the next week,''
he said. ''We will continue to see extensive rural flooding over
the next four to five days and we will see people isolated.''
The Wimmera River at Horsham is expected to peak between 3.75 and
3.85 metres tomorrow night, higher than floods in September 1988
and possibly mirroring the historic August 1909 floods.
Mayor Michael Ryan said locals were watching the rising
floodwaters with trepidation. ''What's amazing people is the fact
that we're sitting here on the 15th of January … how can this be
happening? We don't live in Queensland, we live in Victoria; it's
bizarre. We had fires two years ago so it's bloody hard to believe
we're having floods.''
Charlton, halfway to Mildura from Melbourne in the state's
north-west, had been cut off. More than 200 properties along the
Avoca River were under water and 200 threatened. Local man Garry
Larmour was incredulous: ''Beautiful morning, sun's out, no cloud
in the sky, lots of mosquitoes - and lots of water,'' he told ABC
radio.
In fact, western and central Victoria has already received the
region's highest monthly rainfall on record - in just the first 14
days of January. Over the past week, the weather station at
Maryborough recorded 229 millimetres, by far the most it had seen
in its 132 years. Inglewood had 216 millimetres and Kyneton 263.
The Jeparit station on the Wimmera recorded 161 millimetres of
rain in 24 hours.
''Victoria is experiencing one of its worst flood events in its
history,'' said Kevin Parkyn, senior forecaster at the Bureau of
Meteorology.
''It's been a week in which rainfall totals have been smashed in
parts of Victoria … far worse than we experienced in September,
with four to five times the number of properties impacted.''
Severe rural inundation across the state is expected for days, if
not weeks. Glenorchy, Kerang and Casterton are expected to flood.
Near Ballarat, Creswick, Clunes, Beaufort and Miners Rest have
also been hit.
Visiting the area yesterday, Premier Ted Baillieu said there were
still major risks to towns. ''It's arguably at least as bad as
September but probably, being the second time, it's a harder
hit,'' he said. ''Obviously Queensland's been the focus for a
couple of weeks but we've got our own issues.''
At Bridgewater, north-west of Bendigo, the Loddon peaked at eight
metres, 2.5 metres above the major flood warning level. Dozens of
homes, holiday accommodation, the post office and police station
went under. But lone police officer, Senior Constable Mick Balazs,
joked that the hotel was the priority. ''The main thing is, we get
the pub up and running … If we get that open it will keep the
spirits up.''
The flooding in the Campaspe threatens Echuca, where it meets the
swollen Murray. The peak, expected later today, is likely to reach
levels not seen since 1916.
People remaining in Rochester were running out of water. Resident
Elisha Bamford said she was expecting the worst when she returns
to her Echuca Road home - which is not covered by flood insurance.
''There will be a lot of heartbreak in the town,'' Ms Bamford
said. "No one really expected to see water on this [northern] side
of town; it's come as a huge shock.''
Ms Bamford said she hoped the smaller Victorian towns would not be
forgotten in the shadow of the huge Queensland floods. ''It's
absolutely terrible over in Queensland but with the river not yet
at its peak, it's going to get a lot worse here for many people.''
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday she was ''obviously
very concerned'' about the circumstances of Victorians battling
floodwaters and wanted ''to be able to say hello to people in
those circumstances''.
Melbourne and its surrounds got off relatively lightly but didn't
escape the flooding entirely. The Anglers Hotel on the Maribyrnong
received one of its regular soakings when the river peaked at 2.21
metres at 7.30am yesterday, flooding the public bar.
Fruit growers in Bacchus Marsh are assessing the damage after the
Werribee and Lerderderg rivers broke their banks following heavy
rain. ''It basically cut a path through our orchard; we got up to
two metres of depth,'' said apple grower Nick Dellios, who lost
about 60 per cent of his fruit.
Police warned that people canoeing or kayaking on swollen rivers
were putting extra pressure on emergency services' stretched
resources. Four people have been pulled to safety over the past 24
hours when their vessels have capsized.
The water police were called yesterday to Mount Dryden where a
63-year-old Stawell woman had spent 1½ hours clinging to a tree
after canoeing the flooded area near Lake Lonsdale.
And on Friday, a 42-year-old Ballarat man and his 14-year-old son
were pulled from swollen Burrumbeet Creek after their kayak hit a
tree and capsized.
Late last night, VicRoads advised that all routes between
Melbourne and Adelaide were closed due to flooding, including the
Western Highway, Hamilton Highway and Princes Highway.