General News
27 October, 2022
Park owner, residents, frustated by water release
Residents and patrons at Baringhup’s Loddon House Holiday Park have been left reeling after a majority of the park was inundated earlier this month, with flood water washing away cabins, caravans and personal belongings. The park was evacuated at...
Residents and patrons at Baringhup’s Loddon House Holiday Park have been left reeling after a majority of the park was inundated earlier this month, with flood water washing away cabins, caravans and personal belongings.
The park was evacuated at 10 am on Thursday, October 13 after 22 millimetres of rain fell in Baringhup the day prior according to the Bureau of Meteorology, combined with water being released from the Cairn Curran Reservoir by Goulburn-Murray Water (GMW).
Situated alongside the Loddon River, owner of the park Robert Wilson said he expected parts of the park to be impacted by water, but returning after the evacuation revealed it had been far worse.
“There’d be over 100 vans in the park and I’d say 99 percent of the park has been impacted by water,” he said.
“We had four cabins alongside the river and they were all moved, one of our residents had a caravan that was moved around 100 metres and another caravan was dragged to the opposite side of the road.
“We only have around 10 permanent residents living in the park and most have organised alternate accommodation because we have no power or water at the moment.”
In 2011 floodwater came within 12 feet of Mr Wilson’s home, which is also on site at the park, whereas this time it went straight through.
“We had a lot of prior warning, the council emergency manager came out and helped prepare us five or six weeks before the actual flooding,” he said.
“I remember the 2011 floods did a lot of damage, but not the amount of damage we have now, it was a lot of water.
“Some of the annuals will come back and rebuild but most will just give up now, it means I’ll have less annual visitors to recoup which is hard.
“It’s just unfortunate that amount of water came through, we wish GMW could have retained more water at Cairn Curran but with so much coming it just crushed us.”
Steve Day and his wife have been living in the park for two months while their new home in Diggers Rest is built.
With nowhere else to go, Mr Day said the couple are now worse off than being at square one.
“We got here about two months ago, did the caravan and annex up and put furniture and everything through it — it was all flat pack type furniture because it was temporary,” he said.
“Flat packs swell if you sneeze on them so you can imagine what over a foot of water has done.
“We’re probably worse off than being back to square one, everything in the caravan and annex was new from the furniture to floor coverings and we’ve had to rip everything out.
“We’re still here for about four or five months while the house is being built and have nowhere else to go, we just have to make it work.”
Holidaying in the park since the 1980s, Mr Day said he has never seen floodwater get so far into the park.
“I’ve never seen that much water in the park, the furthest I’ve seen it come up is to the toilet block closest to the river,” he said.
“I stayed when the others evacuated and the only reason I did is because we weren’t expecting this much water to come through.
“I was at a neighbours place with him on the back verandah as water was rushing past and within a bit over half an hour of that, there was over a foot of water in the annex and that was the end of it.
“I’ve been a police officer for 20 years and a prison officer for as long, I’ve been through a lot, but I don’t mind admitting I was edgy when that water was coming through.”
Mr Day, along with several other residents, believe the inundation of the park was caused by GMW releasing large amounts of water from Cairn Curran in a short space of time.
Mr Day said he has contacted Member for Bendigo West Maree Edwards’ office as well as GMW about the release of water but is yet to receive a response.
“I’m in the process of redoing the floors of our place now and there are others in the park doing work too, but we’ve got no idea whether GMW are going to release more water that’ll cause us to flood again,” he said.
“We’re not being told anything and the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen is really hard — it’s extremely difficult to rebuild when you’re not getting a response from the people responsible for this.”
They’re sentiments echoed by Bruce Edwards, who travels from Melbourne each fortnight to stay at the park.
“If GMW had been responsible, they would have let that water out slower over a longer time,” he said.
“I’ve talked to a couple of permanent residents and when you consider the amount of water that was dumped on us, it’s gross irresponsibility.
“We arrived this week to look at the damage and I wasn’t happy with what I saw, we’re up in a higher part of the park that’s never been flooded before and we had two feet of water go through.
“We’re not insured, we’ll have to pay to replace everything and it’s a lot to go through in terms of cleaning it all up.”
According to GMW, around 31,000 megalitres of water was released from Cairn Curran from September 17 to October 7 and between the first and second flood peaks, around 18,000 megalitres was released.
In a statement, GMW emergency controller Peter Clydesdale said the water management authority had released increased amounts of water into the Loddon River due to increasing inflows.
“We have been releasing water through the spillway gates at Cairn Curran Reservoir to make room for inflows since mid-September,” he said.
“We constantly assess whether water needs to be released, and how much water, based on downstream impacts, current conditions, forecast conditions and projected storage volume.
“Releases at Cairn Curran Reservoir meant airspace was available in the storage for further inflows from rainfall events. We used that airspace to minimise down-stream impacts.
“Due to the significant inflows as a result of rainfall, we had to increase releases in order to maintain the integrity of the storage.”
GMW liaised with Mount Alexander Shire Council, Victoria Police and Loddon House Holiday Park and site holders through a meeting on Wednesday, October 12 to plan the park’s evacuation and discuss the increase of releases from Cairn Curran.
It’s understood GMW also attended the holiday park before midday on Thursday, October 13 to confirm it had closed.
“We appreciate that this is a difficult time for the management and patrons of the caravan park and wish to thank them, Victoria Police, Mount Alexander Shire and the SES for their cooperation in evacuating prior to the caravan park being impacted by the floods,” Mr Clydesdale said.
