River Murray flooding: Tears flow as water wreaks havoc on home and business
Their home and workplace was once in an idyllic location overlooking the River Murray. It’s now all under water – and the emotional trauma is starting to take its toll.
SA News
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For months, the water had been rising slowly. Irrepressibly. Relentlessly.
For weeks, they had known it would eventually inundate their home and workplace.
For days, they’d known that moment was imminent.
But when the moment actually arrived, neither of them were prepared for their own reactions.
Jodie Reynolds, owner of Foxtale Houseboats, felt physically sick. Her partner David Pink, owner of Pinkys Home Maintenance, broke down in tears.
Mr Pink’s voice wavers as he recalls that moment last weekend when they arrived at their property, just downstream from Morgan, to see the murky brown water of the River Murray invading their downstairs guest bedroom, storage rooms and sheds.
“I’m emotional now even thinking about it – I’m cooked,” he says as he takes a few seconds to compose himself. “We walked through and I can’t even remember walking through the shed … I don’t even know what I saw.”
Ms Reynolds didn’t cry, but says she “actually wanted to vomit”.
“It just hit home,” she says. “I guess it was just like a real ‘holy shit’ moment. Both of us don’t really remember much – we were just really walking around in a daze, to be honest.
“We knew the water was going to come up under the house but the strength of that water … it’s like a torrent. It was just shock and numbness, really.”
That was on Sunday last week. At that stage, the water was only ankle deep through the bottom floor of their house – an area which doubles as the office and workshops from which they run their businesses.
By the end of the week, it was up to their waists. And it’s rising fast. It’ll rise at least another metre before the river peaks in January. Probably more. They hope it stops before it hits their upstairs living area. But they just don’t know. No-one does.
The river is predicted to peak at Morgan some time in January when the water flow reaches 190 gigalitres a day. This will be the highest flow at the town since the infamous 1956 flood of 1956. The last time the flow was anywhere near this level was 1974.
How this translates to the height of the water remains a guess, but if the height of the river further upstream at Renmark, which hit about 180GL a day this week, is anything to go by, the ability of the couple’s top storey to stay dry will be touch and go. The height of the river at Renmark has far surpassed the height it reached during 1974, even though official flow rates are about the same.
Back at Morgan, the water has already reached the top storey at many shacks across the river from Foxtale Houseboats, and further downstream at Brenda Park. “It’s just heartbreaking,” Ms Reynolds says.
How long their property will remain under water is also anyone’s guess, but Ms Reynolds and Mr Pink know the road to recovery will be long and hard.
They don’t expect to be back living in their home until March at the earliest, don’t expect the houseboat business to be operating again until at least Easter and know they are in for years of hard work to return the property to its former glory.
They were forced off their property a few weeks ago, when the SA Power networks cut electricity. The road to their home closed around the same time.
For the moment, they are living in a houseboat moored in front of Morgan Riverside Caravan Park. Their gangplank went under water this week, meaning they now have to use a boat to get from their houseboat to land. They are using an ablution block at the caravan park for showers and toilets, because they don’t know how much longer they will be able to remove blackwater and greywater from the houseboat.
Using a tinnie to get from their houseboat to the shore at the caravan park is not easy. Because of the nature of the bank, they need to wade through waist high water every time they want to go ashore.
As well as the houseboat hiring business, Ms Reynolds also runs the Morgan slipway, a shack-cleaning operation and a septic truck which is usually kept busy pumping blackwater out of houseboats and shacks. She is also a hairdresser, and has set up a makeshift salon in the caravan park toilet block.
The slipway is now under water. All of the shacks she cleans and pumps out cannot be accessed and the houseboats became inoperable weeks ago when the current reached about 80GL a day (locals estimate the current flow at Morgan is between 130GL and 140GL a day).
Ms Reynolds did a quick calculation a few weeks ago and reckoned she would lose about $200,000 worth of business by the end of December. She can’t bring herself to do the sums for the rest of the summer and beyond. She has about 20 local staff on her books, most of them casual, who are now out of work.
Mr Pink is a builder and handyman now operating without a workshop. He might need to return to a previous job in Clare, more than 120km away, in the next few weeks.
They both worry about damage being done to the land that used to be their riverbank. The force of the current is so great it has already reshaped their foreshore. That bank is now invisible and underwater. They won’t know the final damage for months, nor the destruction the water will cause to the rest of their property which had previously boasted manicured lawns, neat garden beds and a houseboat building operation run by Ms Reynolds’ father John.
“It’s just f ---king hard,” Mr Pink says. “I’ve been good for the past two weeks but then yesterday I had a real shit day. It took me a while to get to work … I was emotional.
“I’m worried about Jodie too. She’s a big girl and she’s got a brave front, but I’m just worried the crash is going to be huge when it comes.”
On her end, Ms Reynolds is finding solace from the response to the regular live videos she has been posting on Facebook. She started taking the videos months ago as she was boating up down the river. The idea was to let neighbouring shack owners see how their properties were coping.
But some of her most recent posts, which have attracted thousands of views, dozens of shares and hundreds of supportive comments, have focused on the water engulfing her own home. Footage of her floating on a tinnie through what was once her carport and of the powerful current cutting a path through her property have left many of her Facebook followers aghast.
“People I don’t even know are saying how they are sitting there crying, watching,” she says. “They are sending me messages of support all the time. The other day I received a lovely Christmas card and chocolates from a person I don’t even know – they didn’t even put their name on it.”
The goodwill on social media helps allay the mental ups and downs which are an inevitable side effect of watching your home gradually be swallowed by water.
“It’s a slow kill – it’s just a slow, emotional kill,” Mr Pink says.
“If it’s a fire (which destroys a house) it’s done and dusted. It’s devastating and you move on … but we just keep watching it. When you live there every day, I suppose …
“No-one knows how to handle it, everyone can say you just need to get on with it, but others can’t. There’s no playbook.”
The couple is grateful for federal and state government flood relief packages, but warns businesses in the Riverland and Murraylands will need help for months, possibly years. They’re also worried about the flow-on affect to other local businesses such as hardware stores, who aren’t immediately affected by the floods, but will still suffer a significant downturn in trade.
Ms Reynolds says other South Australians can offer their support by both visiting the Murray now, during this once-in-a-generation event, and when the flow eventually subsides and the clean-up begins.
So, what’s her mindset moving forward? Has she ever thought the clean-up will be too big? About throwing up her hands and giving it all away?
“No, I will not give in to it,” she says. “It’s just not in my nature. So no, I will fight to the bitter end.”
The author is Jodie Reynolds’ brother-in-law. In 1999, he married Jodie’s sister Penny on the lawn of the Morgan property which is currently under water.
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