Residents in Melbourne's inner west have attended a heated community meeting following the recent flooding of the Maribyrnong River.
Many people were caught off guard by fast rising waters earlier this month that inundated low-lying areas of Maribyrnong, Kensington, Ascot Vale and Keilor.
Since then, residents have been trying to clean up and salvage what they can.
At the meeting on Tuesday night, many people made it clear they feel let down by the Maribyrnong City Council, the Victorian state emergency service, and other authorities.
Representatives of several organisations involved in the community's recovery attended the meeting, including the Environmental Protection Authority, Disaster Recovery Australia and Emergency Recovery Victoria.
Tensions ran high throughout the event, with some speakers shouting at times and talking over each other.
Several residents said they had issues when they tried to contact the support phone line that flood affected locals have been advised to call.
"I've contacted that number 15 times during three days, the first two people had no idea what was going on at all," one woman said.
"The people on those phones are not educated and empowered to help local residents because they don't have an understanding of what services we can benefit from."
"If you're going to put correspondence with a number for residents who are in distress to call, perhaps empower and enable those service attendants to give us the information we need."
A spokeswoman for Emergency Response Victoria, the organisation that manages the phone line, apologised that the service had fallen short.
"All of our operators are trauma-informed trained, they're all really experienced at supporting people at their point of need," she said.
One female resident said she was sick of hearing phrases from decision-makers like "we're having meetings."
"I want a specific, measurable set of actions that are planned with accountable individual names against them to know what is going to be done for the residents of Maribyrnong," she said.
A male resident said councillors and authorities don't understand what flood-affected residents are experiencing.
"You guys are probably doing the best that you can… until you're out there with the people, the residents and so forth to get a true understanding, that's when I think things will work more efficiently," he said.
Maribyrnong City Council chief executive Celia Haddock said council staff have been working seven days a week since the flood.
"All of our staff, we've had 250 staff out on the street plus the relief centre here, so I'm sorry but you need to know your council staff are working for you," she said.
"We are here managing a disaster, as well as we need to keep our other council services going… Once this immediate emergency is over, of course we will be transparent to the community about what we're doing, if you can just bear with us while we get through this week."
Other residents voiced their concern over the council's communication strategies, with one woman questioning whether the council was doorknocking at homes that had been evacuated.
She said elderly residents don't have access to the council's social media channels and others who speak limited English feel "very upset."
Ms Haddock told the woman that the council knows the whereabouts of some residents and that they have been leaving paper newsletters, as well as communicating via social media.
Other locals were frustrated by the lack of notice from Victoria's emergency services on the day of the flood, with several people describing their shock at the rapid rise of the water.
"I got a message at 4:40 in the morning saying the river was going to flood… By 7:30, the water was in my driveway, by 11 o'clock it was in my house. Where was the early warning?" a man said.
The community's concerns also included issues such as pollution risks, financial assistance to pay council rates, the possibility of increased home insurance premiums, rubbish removal and the presence of asbestos in waste.
