For Richmond local Rob Buchanan, the only winners from the downpour hitting his already drenched lowland property north-west of Sydney are “ducks and grass”.
During the devastating floods in 2021, the water was 4 metres high in surrounding paddocks, and Buchanan and his partner, Sam Magnusson, were taking their tinnie to the pub for dinner. This year, though, he fears it will be worse.
At about 4pm on Wednesday, a flood evacuation order was issued for parts of North Richmond in Sydney’s west, with anyone downstream of Redbank Dam ordered to leave the area.
NSW State Emergency Services sent a text notification warning “major flooding similar to March 2021” was expected along the Hawkesbury and Nepean Rivers, urging communities to prepare and evacuate when asked.
Buchanan – a lawyer and engineer specialising in construction – says the management of the current floods has been last-minute at best, and absent at worst.
“All of the low-lying areas here are places where the government has encouraged development to occur, thousands of households,” he says.
“If you get a rain event like this – you get a week out and know the rain is going to fall. You know the catchment is saturated. You can pretty much predict what’s going to happen to the dam.”
Buchanan says Warragamba Dam has been at 98% capacity for weeks and he believes it could have been better managed.
“They know we’re in a La Niña event,” he says. “They know the water’s coming up and now they’ve hit the level of the spillway and they’re having to open the gates.
“We’re dealing with a situation where there is a massive amount of water coming down the river all of a sudden – instantly. It’s an avoidable scenario.”
The Warragamba Dam began spilling at about 3am on Wednesday, coming with a warning for “significant river level rises” along the Nepean, Hawkesbury and Lower Nepean rivers.
The Bureau of Meteorology warned “major flooding” was possible from Wednesday evening at Penrith, North Richmond, Windsor and downstream.
Buchanan says he made repeated inquiries to WaterNSW as to whether they would spill the dam before the rains hit and hadn’t heard back.
“The last time this happened, I spent two days in a tinnie saving horses and cattle,” Buchanan says.
“This is all happening again. You can say ‘it’s the weather, that’s what you get’, absolutely. But the government has done nothing since last year.”
Buchanan and Magnusson plan to wait out the evening on their horse breeding property eating noodles. They’ll be looking at the floorboards they are yet to repair from the last flooding event in 2021.
To date, neither has received commonwealth disaster assistance, despite applying for multiple grants.
Geraldine lives down the road from Buchanan and says her biggest fear is the unknown. But she’s sure “a lot could be done better that hasn’t been since last time”.
Geraldine says there have been “so many disappointments” from governments who, she says, haven’t adequately cleaned up the mess from 2021 or delivered promised flood mitigation strategies.
“The last floods there was a lot of damage, including the riverbank being washed out and a big hole they only started to attempt to fix recently,” she says.
“It’s complete incompetence [and] it’s going to be a bigger flood than last year.”
She says despite promises, there’s been no improvement for flood preparedness from the events that unfolded in March 2021.
“We haven’t even got sandbags,” she says. “I had to ring the SES and nobody could give us a number. Apparently they’re making them now, but it’s too late when we’re busy packing our homes.”
Geraldine has moved everything to the second story of her house and says “that’s all we can do”.
“We know what it’s like living on a flood plain but … the flood relief packages the government proudly announced? … It took me three weeks and every single day, hours on the phone, to get $1,000.
“It reduced me to tears from pure frustration … it’s impossible.”
Fiona Fagan has lived in Richmond for seven years.
She was doing last minute shopping at the packed Richmond Coles on Wednesday afternoon, where shoppers were rushing to purchase essential supplies for the hours ahead, with lines of trolleys packed with toilet paper, flour and nappies.
Fagan is used to flooding and wild weather, but she says there’s an anxiety and a frustration in the air this year that’s unique.
“There’s been so much hype because of what’s been happening in Lismore and Brisbane, everyone’s been talking about this ‘weather bomb’,” she says.
“I know the dam’s full … it’s just a case of wait and see.”
Fagan’s house has never flooded – it’s about 25 metres above sea level and more than 100 years old – but she says everything at the moment is “unprecedented”.
“We’re a little bit jumpy,” she says. “But we should be OK.”
This story was amended on 3 March 2022 to remove a reference, used in error, to the Richmond River near Coraki in northern NSW.
