Our beautiful region of the world can be prone to flooding at times, although we hadn't had a big one for a while. The last flood to reach "major" levels was in 2013. Since then, we've had the occasional "minor" flood and a few bad storm events, but that's about it.
That has all changed in the past three weeks. The amount of rain to fall in our area has been phenomenal, just as it has been in many other parts of Eastern Australia. Our local river rose up to its second highest level ever recorded - the highest being way back in 1893.
Of course, there are now many more homes and businesses than there were then, and the lie of the land has changed, with development, land clearing, etc. This means some areas that have never flooded before were inundated. Plus, with the flood being so much higher than anyone could remember, the force of the water wreaked more havoc on the landscape than we've ever seen.
There are a lot of newcomers to the area, who had no real experience of what our floods can be like, so to be here for such a big one must have been a shock to many. Even as long-time locals, this huge flood was a new one on us. Many parts of the region lost power for multiple days and were cut off from local towns by flooded roads for longer than ever before.
We personally have been very fortunate. We live on high ground - purely by chance. With the rental market the way it has been for the past couple of years, we had to take any house we could get and we wouldn't have bothered questioning at the time whether it was above the flood line. We also were lucky to only lose power for a few hours. Our suburb was cut off from the main town, but we had access to a local shop and, even though most of their shelves were bare, there was enough for what we needed.
As a general rule, after a flood we have hot, sunny weather. This time we had ongoing rain and storms, which has affected the region's recovery. The river went down after a couple of days so roads and bridges opened up, but the ongoing bad weather meant access to some areas kept getting cut again. It's only over the past week that the rain has really cleared properly and given people the chance to clean up the debris and see exactly what they're dealing with.
What many are dealing with, of course, is the loss of all their belongings, as well as homes that are unrecognisable. Many of these buildings are unsalvageable, or at the very least, cannot be repaired until insurance assessors have been through and given the stamp of approval. More people have been left homeless, adding to the already shocking housing crisis in the area.
Despite all the hardship though, there have been glints of light shining through. The way our community pulls together at times like these always leaves me in awe. A number of flood relief centres have been set up and have been swamped (pardon the pun) with donations from the public. Social media pages are filled with people looking to help others in any way they can. The army came to town - boy, can they work hard! The amount they've achieved in their time here has been impressive, to say the least.
It takes time to recover from an event like this, but it's heartening to see how everyone works together to get through it. I thought it was beautiful to see someone on a local Facebook page suggest that any donated items we have left over should be sent on to communities in New South Wales, where the flood was so much worse than here.
We really are very lucky to live in a great community.
