87 - alright!
I live in a little town called Echuca, which sits right on the Victorian side of the border of New South Wales and Victoria. That border consists of a river - the mighty Murray River. Now, the good news? That river is not going to flood. Another piece of good news is that the Goulburn River is not going to flood either... or so they believe, at this stage. Thankfully, North East Victoria did not get as much rain as other areas have.
The bad news?
The local council that includes Echuca is called Campaspe Shire, so named for the Campaspe River that flows along through South West Victoria and meets the Murray River at Echuca. That river - the Campaspe - is flooded. Last night and early this morning, the town of Rochester was evacuated. Rochester is about 20km away from Echuca, and is the last town that you hit as you drive down the Northern Highway toward Melbourne. At present, the flood waters have well and truly peaked in Rochester, and approximately 80% of the town is underwater. The waters will probably not truly begin to recede for a couple of days at least.
Echuca is next. For the past few days I have been labouring under the misapprehension that all the rivers flow away from Echuca, and that the only places that need be concerned about flooding lay downstream of us, toward South Australia. Whilst that is correct in terms of two of our three rivers, it is not the case for the Campaspe, which flows toward the Murray.
At about 3pm, I received an SMS on my phone advising me that we were on flood alert and that there would be a town meeting at 5pm. That caused some degree of panic, as those following my plurk would have seen! Previously I was very zen, I had bought some water, stocked up on non-perishable food, and fished out my maglight torch. I'd packed a bag and squished my sleeping bag into its transport bag. I was zen! The problem was that once this had been accomplished, I had nothing left to do than worry about what was going to be said at the meeting, and listen to the radio talk about how this is expected to be a one in a hundred year flood, and to exceed the 1956 flood. Personally, that is kind of a big deal for me, because I do live relatively close to a river, on low lying ground. Needless to say, I did not want to be here any more. I wanted to take my cat and dog somewhere that I know will be safe, rather than somewhere that "probably might be safe". The problem is that there is literally nowhere to go! You can't get to Bendigo, and whilst I believe you can still get to Shepparton at the moment, I don't know anyone there. In fact, I don't know anyone for miles around. I really wanted to go and hide at my mother's or brother's, but Rochester is in the way and roads are subject to flooding everywhere between here and Melbourne. I don't have a GPS if I get stuck! In summary, I was feeling very, very sad and alone. And I panicked! I feel pretty ridiculous about it now, to be honest. But at the time I couldn't take my mind of it at all, and I tried many different things in an attempt to do so.
The town meeting helped that quite a lot. I'm a lot calmer now that I know what's going on, and where the flooding is likely to occur. It was a pretty good meeting, all thing considered. The guy leading it was late, as they had to helicopter him in from Bendigo, but he was really the best person to do the talking. The CEO of the Shire Council was also pretty fantastic. The first thing he said when he greeted us was in relation to the emergency alert system, which has only been around for about a year, since Black Saturday. It was such a good example of Australian "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!" humour that I had to write it down. He said "[the alert system] seems to work, and we've never used it before so... it works!" Granted, it doesn't sound as light hearted out of context, but it was the kind of attitude I needed to hear. I'm back in my "okay, this is the situation, lets deal with it" zone, which I much prefer over my panic zone.
Anyway - yes, they are expecting the Campaspe to flood. Because the Murray is so full from the September floods, they are expecting that it will take four to five days for all of the water to start flowing back out, away from Echuca. But - we have excellent levee banks! We have a lot of empty flood plains! Most importantly it is not raining, and it not expected to. It's actually vaguely surreal to be experiencing the kind of weather where I would normally be worrying about bushfires and instead be worrying about floods, but there we are.
At the moment, I do not believe that my house is in any danger of being flooded. If you look at a map of Echuca, the area that they're expecting to flood is between Crofton Street and Collier Street, with High Street being the line where it's expected to stop. My house is far over in the east, albeit in an area that is categorised as "subject to inundation" according to the planning zone. After spending a lot of time playing about on the Land Victoria website, I have decided that my area is only likely to be inundated if the Goulburn or Murray Rivers flood. So whilst I am still going to be listening in to the emergency broadcasts, just in case, I am not going to panic. I cannot do more than I have already done! We are not expecting to lose power; they are not expecting the township itself to be affected; and I am not expecting to have to evacuate my house. That said, this flood event is unprecedented! Nobody really knows! It is frustrating, but I kind of wanted to slap the people who were bitching about the SES and Council representatives being unable to give them definitive answers. There are none. The SES people in particular have probably had very little sleep over the last few days and are trying their best; it doesn't help the situation when people are telling them that their best isn't good enough.
In general, the present situation in Victoria as a whole is that if you draw a line between Echuca and Melbourne, and colour in the left hand side of the map (toward South Australia) -- a large portion of that area is subject to some degree of flooding. Anyone worrying should know that we are not expecting anything even close to what has happened in Queensland. There will be no flash flooding in Echuca. Well, most likely not. Remember - unprecedented!
At this stage I will probably even have to go to work on Monday.
This entry was originally posted at http://misfit.dreamwidth.org/280240.html with
comments.
The bad news?
The local council that includes Echuca is called Campaspe Shire, so named for the Campaspe River that flows along through South West Victoria and meets the Murray River at Echuca. That river - the Campaspe - is flooded. Last night and early this morning, the town of Rochester was evacuated. Rochester is about 20km away from Echuca, and is the last town that you hit as you drive down the Northern Highway toward Melbourne. At present, the flood waters have well and truly peaked in Rochester, and approximately 80% of the town is underwater. The waters will probably not truly begin to recede for a couple of days at least.
Echuca is next. For the past few days I have been labouring under the misapprehension that all the rivers flow away from Echuca, and that the only places that need be concerned about flooding lay downstream of us, toward South Australia. Whilst that is correct in terms of two of our three rivers, it is not the case for the Campaspe, which flows toward the Murray.
At about 3pm, I received an SMS on my phone advising me that we were on flood alert and that there would be a town meeting at 5pm. That caused some degree of panic, as those following my plurk would have seen! Previously I was very zen, I had bought some water, stocked up on non-perishable food, and fished out my maglight torch. I'd packed a bag and squished my sleeping bag into its transport bag. I was zen! The problem was that once this had been accomplished, I had nothing left to do than worry about what was going to be said at the meeting, and listen to the radio talk about how this is expected to be a one in a hundred year flood, and to exceed the 1956 flood. Personally, that is kind of a big deal for me, because I do live relatively close to a river, on low lying ground. Needless to say, I did not want to be here any more. I wanted to take my cat and dog somewhere that I know will be safe, rather than somewhere that "probably might be safe". The problem is that there is literally nowhere to go! You can't get to Bendigo, and whilst I believe you can still get to Shepparton at the moment, I don't know anyone there. In fact, I don't know anyone for miles around. I really wanted to go and hide at my mother's or brother's, but Rochester is in the way and roads are subject to flooding everywhere between here and Melbourne. I don't have a GPS if I get stuck! In summary, I was feeling very, very sad and alone. And I panicked! I feel pretty ridiculous about it now, to be honest. But at the time I couldn't take my mind of it at all, and I tried many different things in an attempt to do so.
The town meeting helped that quite a lot. I'm a lot calmer now that I know what's going on, and where the flooding is likely to occur. It was a pretty good meeting, all thing considered. The guy leading it was late, as they had to helicopter him in from Bendigo, but he was really the best person to do the talking. The CEO of the Shire Council was also pretty fantastic. The first thing he said when he greeted us was in relation to the emergency alert system, which has only been around for about a year, since Black Saturday. It was such a good example of Australian "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!" humour that I had to write it down. He said "[the alert system] seems to work, and we've never used it before so... it works!" Granted, it doesn't sound as light hearted out of context, but it was the kind of attitude I needed to hear. I'm back in my "okay, this is the situation, lets deal with it" zone, which I much prefer over my panic zone.
Anyway - yes, they are expecting the Campaspe to flood. Because the Murray is so full from the September floods, they are expecting that it will take four to five days for all of the water to start flowing back out, away from Echuca. But - we have excellent levee banks! We have a lot of empty flood plains! Most importantly it is not raining, and it not expected to. It's actually vaguely surreal to be experiencing the kind of weather where I would normally be worrying about bushfires and instead be worrying about floods, but there we are.
At the moment, I do not believe that my house is in any danger of being flooded. If you look at a map of Echuca, the area that they're expecting to flood is between Crofton Street and Collier Street, with High Street being the line where it's expected to stop. My house is far over in the east, albeit in an area that is categorised as "subject to inundation" according to the planning zone. After spending a lot of time playing about on the Land Victoria website, I have decided that my area is only likely to be inundated if the Goulburn or Murray Rivers flood. So whilst I am still going to be listening in to the emergency broadcasts, just in case, I am not going to panic. I cannot do more than I have already done! We are not expecting to lose power; they are not expecting the township itself to be affected; and I am not expecting to have to evacuate my house. That said, this flood event is unprecedented! Nobody really knows! It is frustrating, but I kind of wanted to slap the people who were bitching about the SES and Council representatives being unable to give them definitive answers. There are none. The SES people in particular have probably had very little sleep over the last few days and are trying their best; it doesn't help the situation when people are telling them that their best isn't good enough.
In general, the present situation in Victoria as a whole is that if you draw a line between Echuca and Melbourne, and colour in the left hand side of the map (toward South Australia) -- a large portion of that area is subject to some degree of flooding. Anyone worrying should know that we are not expecting anything even close to what has happened in Queensland. There will be no flash flooding in Echuca. Well, most likely not. Remember - unprecedented!
At this stage I will probably even have to go to work on Monday.
This entry was originally posted at http://misfit.dreamwidth.org/280240.html with
comments.