Late last year there were terrible bushfires across north eastern Victoria. Max Rheese sent us a note suggesting there was a need for more prescribed burning.
Now there is isolated flooding.
Following is a note and some photographs from Ralph Barraclough a landholder and a fire brigade captain with land adjacent and surrounded by the Alpine National Park (pdf file). The National Park contains many nationally significant species including the Bogong Daisy-bush, Mountain Pygmy Possum, Broad-toothed Rat and Alpine Water Skink. Large areas of the park burnt in 2003 and again in December last year.
Greetings,
Well after saving nearly everything when we were burnt out at Licola on December 14 last year, we are now being flooded out.
The damage here is so bad my house would not have a hope in hell of surviving a similar flood again. The debris is nearly as high as the spoutings and the previous biggest flood hight never even got to the footings after 36mm of rain in 20 minutes. This flood was from 28mm in 45 minutes.
Target Creek, Friday night 6pm
The first the locals knew I was in trouble was when 3km away at Licola they saw my worldly posesions floating down the local river. They are collecting my equipment 50km downstream. I live on a small creek that is a tributory.
The flood through my house was so intense it washed a Land Rover engine block out of my shed into the garden. The floor boards came up from the water underneath and tipped over all the stuff I had stored on chaires and stools to try and be above the flood waters. Industrial sewing machines were washed down along the creek.
I nearley drowned trying to get a Land Rover out of a shed when a tidel wave pushed me back in. There was so much debris floating around I had great difficulty remaining upright.
I am expecting more floods like this and this is nowhere like the worst case scenario. The country is just so burnt there is nothing to slow the water from getting into streams. Things are so bad here I will be salvaging as much as possible from my house and taking it to higher ground than Noah would consider drowning. Last week flooding wrecked a building site replacing a lost house from the fire. The new house suffered serious structural damege, a site hut was utterly flattened and a caravan ended up on a meter of debris.
Licola itself was also flooded out. The shop had water through it, all up 2 houses and the living area of the shop may have to be rebuilt. We have had tremendous help from the SES, Police and Wellington Shire and some of the local dear hunters. The CFA has offered very welcome support.
My files from the last 9 years of trying to https://cialico.com stop these things from happening were all removed from the house only hours before the flood and survive.
Regards,
Ralph Barraclough
Lincola, Victoria
Target Creek, Saturday morning 10am
Jamieson Road, Saturday morning
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.