SA floods crisis: Shack owners including Neil Kerley’s widow Barb wait nervously as River Murray rises

Footy legend Neil Kerley’s widow Barb is among the shack owners watching and waiting nervously as slowly but surely, the waters rise on river homes.

Like a war fought on two fronts, the water comes from both sides.

As the River Murray rises, swollen with floodwaters flowing downstream from the eastern states, its backwaters also fill, turning many house and shack communities into islands.

In some cases these islands will be inundated when flow levels reach the predicted 135GL a day next month.

Others will stay above the water line but residents will need to evacuate to avoid being cut off from the larger river communities, unable to access food and medical supplies and stranded in homes and shacks without electricity or working sewerage and plumbing.

For some along the river the approaching floods will be the inconvenience of being unable to use their shacks over the Christmas and summer holiday period, followed by the unenviable prospect of dealing with insurance agencies when the waters subside.

For others, though, the river is home and the buildings along its edge house many who live permanently on the banks of our biggest river.

For these people the only home they know is under threat and they face the prospect of weeks, possibly months, living on the kindness of friends or family.

One of those facing the ­reality of having to leave his home is James Watts.

Mr Watts, who lost his right arm and leg in a motorcycle accident as a young man and is affectionately known as Lefty in his Swan Reach community (“don’t ask me why,” he quipped dryly), uses an off-road electric wheelchair to get around the narrow isthmus known as Marks Landing.

He said many people who lived along the river did not have internet access and this left them feeling cut off from important information on flow rates and flood risks.

“If you’re not on a com­puter and on the net you’re not hearing anything,” Mr Watts said.

“I take the dog for a walk every morning and every night and I talk to people around here and that’s how I find out what’s going on. It’s hearsay.

“That information should be everywhere – put flyers up in the post office, that kind of thing.”

Mr Watts, 59, who has lived at Marks Landing for more than 20 years, said he had boxed his belongings up and was planning to move into a friend’s house on higher ground in Swan Reach this weekend.

“I’ve only got my stove, my heater, my white goods and my bed left to pack,” he said.

“If it wasn’t for the fantastic friends I have helping me out I’m not sure what I would have done.”

James Watts and his dog Joe next to the rising river near his Marks Landing home. Picture: Tom Huntley

Up the river, at Blanchetown, sisters Bec Thomas and Jess Clark and their husbands, both called Dan, are in the process of building their dream family getaway, a place where their four children can go a little wild while the parents enjoy the serenity of a beautiful part of the river.

Before they can do that, though, they have to deal with water rising on both side of the road.

The blokes have been sleeping in swags on site, busily building a makeshift mezzanine level in the shed as a place to store things above the waterline, and they were – ironically – waiting on a water truck to come and fill their still-empty rainwater tanks so they didn’t float off down the river.

It is a race against time, with the road in likely to be cut off this weekend, along with the power.

“We’re expecting the peak in the middle of December,” Daniel Clark said. “Then the river is likely to join with the backwater behind us.

“But the fact that we’re still building is probably actually the best-case scenario.

“The insurance is being paid by the builder and there’s minimal stuff that can get ­damaged.”

Bec Thomas and sister Jess Clark at their Blancehtown holiday home. Picture: Tom Huntley

Down at Walkers Flat, Barb Kerley’s home has the river at the front and Lake Bywaters ­behind, and both are rising.

It is the first flood Mrs Kerley has had to deal with without her husband and her rock, SANFL legend Neil, who died in a car accident in June.

“I told Neil last night, ‘I’m on a ship with no captain – what do I do?’ ” she said.

“But I know he’d be saying, ‘you’ll be right, everything will be right’.”

And Mrs Kerley has good reason to believe the shack she and Neil bought 53 years ago, which became their permanent home in 2001, would, ­indeed, be right.

Mrs Kerley said it survived the floods of 1974 when water sat level with the front retaining wall, and it survived the floods of 1956 which saw the house go underwater.

“They just moved everything out, opened the louvre windows and let the water flow through,” she said.

She said she vividly ­remembered the 1974 floods, with the family moving up to keep an eye on their shack.

“W

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e were up here without power,” Mrs Kerley said.

“We had a kerosene fridge, a wood stove and kerosene lamps. The kids had the best holiday. We brought up a fridge-freezer and plugged it in at the farmer’s house across the way. Neil and kids would row over every morning and get what we needed for the day.”

She said even if her home did not flood she would still need to move out as the power would be cut off.

“And when that happens nobody will be able to use their toilets because they’re electric,” she said.

“Once the access road goes under, that’s when they’ll turn off the power and close the ferry.”

When that happens, she would move down to Adelaide to stay with my daughter in Adelaide,” Mrs Kerley said.

In the meantime, there was no shortage of people offering to help out, she said.

“I’m very lucky, the community here has been absolutely fabulous to me,” she said.

Barb Kerley at her Walkers Flat home. Picture: Tom Huntley

For those who earn a living from the River Murray shacks it is shaping up to be a lean summer.

David Hartley owns River Shack Rentals and manages 90 shacks from Cadell through to Wellington, most of them riverfront.

Mr Hartley said there were already 20 or 30 shacks on his roster that were unable to be accessed due to road closures.

“Within a fortnight we’ll probably be down to 10,” he said. “We’ve had so many cancellations already, which is completely understandable.

“It’s one of those things – it’s fantastic for the environment but not so good for ­business.

“But we’re pretty lucky here in South Australia when you look at what’s happened in places like Shepparton.”

Mr Hartley, who also runs the Mannum Motel, said the floods were already having an impact on employment in the area.

“We’ve had more resumes sent to the motel for cleaning jobs this week than we’ve had for the last two years combined,” he said.

“They were people who might have worked houseboats and the like.”

And he said there were still opportunities for people wanting to holiday on the river.

“There are properties that aren’t waterfront, and it is a fantastic time to get up and get a look at all the backwaters,” Mr Hartley said.