Nathan Spicer looks back at the events and issues from November in The Guardian’s Year in Review series.
Tuesday, November 15
• Swan Hill’s Remembrance Day ceremony held extra poignancy with about 100 current Australian Defence Force servicemen and women attending while in town combating the floods. It brought an special feeling to the already strong crowd on the emotional day. The crowd was wowed by the massive Bushmaster armoured vehicles they had brought along.
• Water-quality tests in the Murray River at Swan Hill suggest low levels of E coli may have been present and the floodwater needed to be treated as contaminated.
Friday, November 18
• Cr Les McPhee was elected mayor unopposed, with Cr Stuart King elected deputy mayor. Cr McPhee said he would not take the full mayoral allowance of $96,470 – taking $25,000 less than he was entitled to. It is Cr McPhee’s sixth term as mayor since 2013.
• The Murray Valley Highway reopened to traffic between Kerang and Lake Charm after a levee was constructed to direct floodwater away from the road at Reedy Lake. The highway had been closed since Treat Yourself with a choice of 45 MIN mid-October as water resisted its natural flow beneath the Wandella Creek bridge at the highway, 7km north of Kerang.
