FOR Kim Morton, husband Greg and son Sam, the past week has been a blur of sandbags and levees as they battle to keep the rising floodwaters away from their Goodnight property.
“I think it’s important for people to realise it’s an ongoing battle as it is, exactly like being in a war zone,” Mrs Morton said.
“You are always building the next line of defence and working out the next movement.
“We’ve had one levee break and we lost crop with that, and we are trying to build a second levee and are hoping it will hold because that could come in all around the back of the house and flood out all of the sheds and infrastructure.
“Everyone is on tenterhooks, and we still don’t know how much more (the river) rises – they can’t sort of give us an answer on that.”
Just two farms back from the Wakool junction, where the Murray and Wakool rivers meet, the Mortons had the help of the Tooleybuc-Manangatang Football Club and the local Rural Fire Service brigade to help sandbag their home last weekend.
RFS flood co-ordinator Danny Andrews, who is now on his fourth week sandbagging high-risk properties, told The Guardian that the biggest concern for Goodnight locals was the backup of water at Wakool Junction, which is causing rises of four to six inches at a time.
“To put it into perspective, we’ve got the Murray running at a minor flood level at the moment with 28,000 megalitres currently running through it, then obviously you get the Wakool River that runs into it at the end of Goodnight, and that is running at about 137,000ML, I believe, or a little bit more, and river heights are 11.7 (metres) at the junction, so you have got a backing-up effect,” Mr Andrews said.
“So the river is actually stalling at the junction and the Murray has actually stopped flowing down there and it is moving backwards, and with that you start to get houses flooding and banks breaking and all the crazy stuff that happens with levees breaking.”
The RFS have had the assistance of strike teams from Northern Rivers region and Deniliquin, as well as volunteers from Balranald, Moulamein, Koraleigh and other surrounding areas.
“I just hope that the Wakool peak doesn’t meet the Murray peak, which could be a lot worse if that happens, but if it kind of staggers itself with the Wakool coming in and the Murray coming in at a different time will help our efforts,” Mr Andrews said.
With peaks and water levels still hard to predict, residents like Mrs Morton were struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel.
“It is not only the flooding, but you’ve got non-stop mozzies, awful blackwater, plus the boys are working around the clock most of the night just checking for breakages in the banks,” Mrs Morton said.
“There’s not much sleep happening. You’re continuously building another line of defence.”
In spite of it all, Mrs Morton and Mr Andrews agreed on the amazing strength of the community spirit.
“I couldn’t have done it without all of the businesses getting behind me – if I wanted one truck I had three trucks lining up to deliver sand, if I wanted people, they were there,” Mr Andrews said.
“There is always a brighter side to a disaster, and I think the brighter side is everyone bands together as a community.”