Lynda Kellow has lived by the Campaspe River in north-east Victoria her entire life. She’s seen floods but nothing like the devastation that tore through Rochester at the weekend.
“It’s horrendous,” she says. “If anyone says this isn’t a natural disaster here, they’re crazy. They need to get their feet on the ground and have a damn good look.”
Rochester is still coming to terms with the ferocity of the swollen river, which inundated houses like a tidal wave.
Kellow encouraged her two parents, aged in their 80s, to head to the Bendigo evacuation centre ahead of expected major flooding last Friday. In the end, the flood waters breached their home, “whipped through the furnishings” and climbed eight inches up the walls.
“Their place is just not going to be habitable at all, not much is salvageable,” Kellow says. “They’re both displaced, and their whole world is there. It’s just unfair – for people to go through this at their age.
“People can’t live in this environment. They’ve got nowhere to go … you can feel now that the community spirit is wavering. I think there’s a lot of people that are just going to sigh and walk out and leave it all behind.”
Kellow’s parents are among hundreds of residents in Rochester whose homes have been reduced to junk discarded on the side of the street – a rolled up carpet, a fridge, a broken wardrobe.
Residents worked through the night on Friday to protect homes and shopfronts but 40,000 sandbags weren’t enough to keep the deluge at bay. It was too furious, too fast.
Water levels exceeded the devastating floods of 2011 and took the life of a 71-year-old resident, Kevin Wills, who was found dead in his backyard on Saturday morning.
The State Emergency Service carried out 160 flood rescues, while many more volunteers ferried locals to safety on tinnies and tractors. Tim Williams, the SES’s Rochester controller, told reporters that “every single house” in the 3,113 strong town had some level of flooding.
Nearly a week after the devastating event, some streets and playgrounds in Rochester are still covered in a layer of water.
As it recedes, the full scale of the damage is laid bare. Fences have bent under the weight of the water, while roads have been split open and slicked with silt and mud. The clean-up will take weeks or months.
Sandbagging did not prevent Robert McCormick’s house from being flooded. He evacuated on Thursday night and returned days later find to his furniture ruined.
“It was no good,” he says. “I threw everything out – most people have. We’ve been through it before in 2011, but this one … went so much higher than last time. The size was a surprise.
“You see things like this on telly but people forget. We need assistance now, and there’s more rain to come.”
In a church in the town on Wednesday, volunteers packed hampers of nappies, bedding and non-perishable items. Trucks made their slow progression past houses, collecting furniture too broken to be salvaged.
St Joseph’s parish school remained closed, as did the hospital, which was evacuated last week. Some locals expressed disbelief that it had taken until Tuesday for 10 Australian defence force personnel to arrive.
They also questioned why ambulances that were in Rochester were recalled to assist nearby townships. It left the pharmacist as the only verified medical practitioner in the town.
The recovery effort has been fuelled by grassroots volunteers. Bev Benson is among them, ferrying gumboots and pet food to locals in need. She says community spirit is heartening, but it “only goes so far”.
“A lot of people have been very supportive, dropping tea, coffee, sugar, but people are coming in upset, too,” she says. “Social support is what people are going to need. A friendly face. I don’t know what’s going to happen down the track … this could go on for months.”
Lee Wilson, a former local councillor, says the only mental health support currently on the ground for shaken residents is volunteers with minimal training.
“We’re doing the welfare checks,” he says. “We’ve got people we know right now are in houses they should not be living in. They’ve got no food, and their houses are trashed … how are we trained to deal with that? What now?”
A state government spokesperson acknowledged that it was an “anxious” time for many Victorians but support was available through emergency relief assistance payments and relief centres.
“We know Rochester has been particularly hard hit – along with hundreds of volunteers and ADF personnel on the ground, Johns Lyng Group have helped set up the local clean up process and a temporary tip,” the spokesperson said.
“We’re in regular contact with community leaders of Rochester who have made their needs around health and support services clear, and we’ll continue to provide the town with what they need to get back on their feet.”
An SES spokesperson said the agency did not record a breakdown of how many volunteers and crews it had active in Rochester during and after the flood peak, but she said they were preparing for a “multi-agency air rescue crew” to visit flood-affected areas, including Rochester, from Thursday morning.
The crew will be departing from Mangalore in the Strathbogies.
