Community members from our twin towns have had a busy week as flood waters test the towns’ levees. Sand bagging crews in both Koondrook and Barham have been stockpiling the hot commodity.

At the Gannawarra Shire Council depot on Tuesday night, 48 tons of sand filled 3,500 bags in 90 minutes amongst a flurry of community volunteers. 2,000 of those sandbags were palletised to be moved to protect town infrastructure and a donation of 4,000 additional bags for community members by Elders in Barham resulted in a further 1,500 filled before the sand ran out.

Flood meetings were held on Wednesday in Cohuna, Koondrook and Barham to provide an update on the situation. The flood peak is expected to arrive in Koondrook-Barham on October 28, early estimates are a height of 6.2m but more will be known after Echuca’s peak, expected to be on Friday, October 21.

Murray River Council (MRC) has now moved towards on-the-ground preparation for flooding events in Barham and surrounds.

MRC held a meeting with a number of emergency and support personnel on Tuesday, October 18 to discuss local management of the event, including road access, evacuation points, levee management and localised waste and utility services.

Agencies in attendance/represented included NSW Police, Rural Fire Service, Local Emergency Management Officers, Transport for NSW, SES, NSW Public Works Advisory (levee specialist), MRC (management/waste/engineering/community and communications), Alan Mathers and WMLIG Roger Knight.

In preparation of the peak, a full inspection of the 14km of levees will be undertaken to gain the most current condition assessment with known hot spots already assessed and attended to.

A further 20,000 bags have been delivered and the sand bagging operations will be relocated to allow more space for works.

Discussions also continue around maintaining the continuity of water and sewer operations, along with waste management and any post-event clean up, should it be required.

For community members, questions remain why does it take a flood to be bearing down on us to conduct routine maintenance on critical infrastructure such as a flood bank on a flood plain?

Thomas Sowell summed it up well. “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 20 October 2022.