Life in limbo for family weeks after initial GV flooding disaster

By Murray Silby

Dec 18, 2022

**No swimming this Christmas:** Kerry and Mick Wickham’s pool is barely recognisable from the resort-style property they usually enjoy each Christmas after more than a 1m of flood water flowed through the block. Photo by Murray Silby

It took just a day for Mick and Kerry Wickham’s lives to take a dramatic twist in October.

They were on holiday in South Australia as flood waters circled their property at Kaarimba, north of Bunbartha, and eventually engulfed it.

Almost two months later, they’re still working out what their future will be, but they know it’s going to be vastly different from what they’d planned.

“We knew it was raining and we knew there was rain coming, but we knew that it had worked in the past,” Mr Wickham said.

“Ninety three, 2010, 2016, the loch system worked.

“We were quite comfortable going on the ”loop“ (holiday) and then this has just hit us like a ton of bricks.

Before: The swimming pool before the flooding.

“We’ve lost our assets, what we’ve built over our last 33 years of marriage together is just gone in one fell swoop of arrogance of management of this loch system.”

The loch system is Loch Garry, which is managed by Goulburn-Murray Water.

Many residents in the Bunbartha area believe mismanagement of the loch by G-MW made the impacts of the flood worse than they should have been.

G-MW has said it operates “Loch Garry in accordance with the Loch Garry flood protection district operating rules”, but “difficulties (in fulfilling that plan) were caused by unprecedented flooding”.

It announced on Friday, October 21, that a full review of the handling of, and operating procedures for Loch Garry would be conducted, “as is standard practice following a major flood event”.

**Inland sea:** Mick Wickham argues that flood water could not take its natural course because its flow away from his property was blocked by a road, a channel and farm development.

Mr Wickham also said a regional drainage plan for the area was needed as he said water was trapped by a channel, a road and developed farmland in his immediate area.

“The drainage is massive now, it’s just shown that there is no drainage,” he said.

“There’s no drainage for the water to get away from South Walshs Bridge Rd (Walshs Bridge South Rd/Waaia Rd) underneath that to where it wants to go and where channel 12, a Goulburn-Murray Waters channel, there’s no siphon under that where it should have gone to a natural depression on the other side.

“They’ve built that channel over that depression and locked this water in.”

He also wants greater regulation of farm development plans.

“So they’re not interrupting with the natural flow or where the water should go,” he said.

**Putrid mess:** Mick and Kerry Wickham’s kitchen was left a putrid mess after 1m-deep flood water went through it, contrasting with its original state. Photo by Murray Silby

Devastating: Mick and Kerry Wickham’s property at 26 Sandilands Rd, Kaarimba, north of Bunbartha before the floods of October 2022. Flooding killed the grass and left a dark sludge, tadpoles and frogs in the pool. Flood waters inundated the house more than a 1m deep, destroying furniture and other possessions.

**Gutted:** The Wickhams are having to clear the home of all their possessions and furniture after the flooding. Photo by Murray Silby

Mr and Mrs Wickham’s retirement plans are now uncertain, as is the immediate future of their home, while they wait for insurance assessors to make their decisions.

“We still don’t know whether the unit where the daughter and granddaughter live may be demolished, and we still don’t know whether our primary home will be demolished,” Mr Wickham said.

Mr and Mrs Wickham are staying with family while they negotiate a kind of limbo as they wait for insurance companies to make their decisions.

“At the moment we’re hamstrung, as are, probably, a lot of other people, but yeah, that’s where we are at the moment,” Mrs Wickham said.