Cathy Hunter, 59, can’t access any financial assistance after spending thousands to build a levee to protect her property

While many Riverland residents are being kept safe by government-funded works, others have slipped through the cracks, forced to fork out thousands to build their own levees.

A Riverland war widow has slammed the government’s “discriminative” flood assistance package after she was unable to apply for a grant to cover a large flood levee built around her property.

Cathy Hunter, 59, has been spending weeks preparing her small property outside of Barmera as the rising River Murray crept closer to the door of her home each day.

But while other residents are being kept safe by works undertaken by the government and council, Ms Hunter has been left to fund her own levee.

She said there was “nothing available whatsoever” in the financial assistance package.

“It’s really discriminative. Businesses can claim a grant of up to $50,000 for their levees, people in the town of Renmark are protected by the council levee, but because I’m not in town, I’m on my own. The water isn’t just going to Renmark,” she said.

“The stress of it all is awful, I don’t want to be plastered all over the media, but if you don’t speak up you don’t get anywhere.”

Cathy Hunter, 59, stands in front of the huge levee she funded to protect her property from rising floodwaters. Now she's calling on the government to help.

The stress has been compounded by the fact Ms Hunter was facing this emergency situation without her husband Ron – a Vietnam War veteran who died just a year ago.

“He was my backbone and I’ll be honest during previous floods I didn’t take much notice of what he did to prepare,” she said.

“I knew I had to be on the front foot and shop around to get contractors in because I knew they would be inundated. It’s cost me thousands of dollars.”

The retired pensioner said doing nothing was not an alternative.

“Sure I have insurance, but I want to prevent it from even getting to that because I would no doubt end up out of pocket,” she said.

“I don’t want to go through all that.”

Currently the state government will not provide financial assistance to residents building private flood levees.

“It would almost be an act of futility for the state government to provide money for private levees that aren’t with certification,” Premier Peter Malinauskas said.

“It just gets washed away.”

Some interstate private levees have been “largely redundant” according to the Premier, who said some haven’t been “built to the standard that is required”.

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The Premier is currently speaking “very frequently” to the treasurer about the nuance of the current package and whether or not adjustments will be made to fund.

“But we’ve got to be careful about the funding of levee banks because we only want to fund levy banks that are done to a particular specification,” Mr Malinauskas said.

Water resources and River Murray Shadow Minister Nicola Centofanti said people shouldn’t be punished for being proactive.

“The Opposition welcomes the Government’s financial support package, but will be keeping a very close eye on its delivery to ensure locals who are impacted by rising water flows don’t fall through the cracks,” she said.

“It’s concerning to hear reports directly from Riverland residents who have taken the initiative to protect and prepare their homes by building levees or purchasing generators, but who are being told they will not receive support.

“I urge Peter Malinauskas to look closely at where there could be gaps.”