Rhett Burnie
RESIDENTS from across north central Victoria were left with a sense of déjà vu as wild weather again battered the region last week.
In scenes recurrent throughout the district in the past six months, roads were again turned to rivers, trees downed and access to some towns cut as more huge rainfall hammered the area.
Darraweit Guim was among the hardest hit with Deep Creek, which runs through the centre of the town, bursting its banks three times on Friday.
The usually small stream was transformed into a gushing river, splitting the hamlet in two and forcing residents to take detours of up to 30 kilometres to get from one side of town to the other.
Darraweit Guim resident and local fire brigade president Kevin Ryan said the creek first swelled at 6.30am before subsiding at 8am.
“It came up pretty early, all that water came from Kyneton and the Cobaws from their floods on Thursday night,” Mr Ryan said.
“It subsided about 10 inches at 8am but then at 2pm it came up again.
“(That time) the water came from Number Three Creek, which gets water from Kilmore,” he said.
Mr Ryan said the flood waters again subsided but a third rush of water caused the creek to again swell at midnight.
“They had a lot (of rain) in Lancefield and that came down here,” he said.
He said water inundated two homes in the town and part of the primary school.
“The old building (at the primary school) probably got a bit of water damage but the rest of the school was OK,” he said.
“One property on the west (of the town) I think had six inches of water in their house and there was another one with 18 inches through the house,” he said.
Mr Ryan said flood preparation was becoming a regular occurrence in the town.
“This was the fourth time in six months that we’ve had to sandbag the primary school,” Mr Ryan said.
Further north, the town of Strath Creek was also cut off when the town’s namesake swamped the main street, inundating the local pub.
The pub’s owner, Paul Brockhus, who only took over the business 12 weeks ago, said the historic hotel suffered significant damage.
“The carpets are ruined, we got it all through the kitchen, it just came rushing in like a river,” Mr Brockhus said.
But despite the bad luck, Mr Brockhus said he was amazed at the support his customers showed during the ordeal.
“Our customers were awesome, mate, they were amazing,” he said.
“They were unreal, they pushed us out of the way so they could help clean up.
He said another customer came back to the pub the following day with his excavator, clearing the debris, digging a trench and then building a levee to help prevent further rain from entering the pub.
“He’s a superhero, all of our customers are superheroes,” Mr Brockhus said
Flood waters also raged through Dabyminga Creek at Tallarook, while a building in Foote Street, Kilmore, was damaged after a tree toppled on it.
Just hours earlier emergency service workers pulled a woman from her car after it stalled and was almost swept away when she tried to cross the waterlogged Doggetts Bridge on the Kilmore-Lancefield Road.
On the same road a young driver had to have her car towed after it aqua-planed into a water filled embankment. She escaped without injury but was left shaken from the accident.
A spokesperson for the SES told the Review is was imperative that motorists do not try and drive through flood waters.
“It’s very, very dangerous,” he said.
He said the SES had responded to a number of calls throughout the region, with 11 trees falling onto roads during the wild weather and a number of local properties flooding.
More than 65 millimetres of rain was recorded at Kilmore Gap according to the Bureau of Metrology.
