This was published 1 year ago
Flood and fury: How the west was let down
By Clay Lucas and Sophie Aubrey
Lee and Selin Lanzafame holding up two images of their flooded home, taken 48 years apart.Credit: Jason South
As Lee Lanzafame stared out at a racing sea of pungent muddy water swallowing his street last October, he found himself in the same position as his grandfather half a century earlier, in May 1974.
“My heart was just pounding. The water wouldn’t stop rising. There were waves bouncing off the house,” he says. “The three petrol stations behind my house leaked a ton of fuel through my house. The raw sewage smell was the following day.”
Lee’s late grandparents, Mario and Bianca, fled Italy during World War II and by April 1974 were moving into the double-storey home they’d built in the inner-west suburb of Maribyrnong. It was 250 metres from the Maribyrnong River.
The month after they moved in, the worst flood in seven decades hit. Aerial photos taken that day show Mario on the balcony, surrounded by water, and the coast guard motoring past.
Jump forward 48 years to the spring morning of Friday, October 14, 2022, and, outside that same house now owned by Lee and wife Selin, the ferocity of the floodwaters compared to 1974 is uncanny. In 1974, Mario scratched a line in the wall showing the height waters reached inside his home. Lee made a near identical mark in the same wall last October.
The Flemington racecourse floodwall kept the track in perfect condition on October 14. In the background is the flooded suburb of Maribyrnong.Credit: Emma Johnston
This week, as a truer picture emerged of what happened in the October floods, something else became clearer: that hundreds of traumatised victims had been badly let down through a combination of failures in early warning systems, emergency management and planning decisions by government.
It came as locals were already grappling with the fact the interests of the most powerful local landowner, the Victoria Racing Club, with its flood wall protecting Flemington Racecourse, had been deemed more worthy than their own.
What troubles many residents deluged in Maribyrnong but also in Avondale Heights, Kensington and Ascot Vale, are signs the Andrews government is trying to evade responsibility for floods that were predictable and, some would argue, preventable.
Maribyrnong is an Anglicised version of the Aboriginal term “Mirring-gnay-bir-nong”, which translates as “I hear a ringtail possum”, and for tens of thousands of years the river was a life source for Indigenous Australians.
In 1840, a powerful institution would start its life on the banks of the Maribyrnong: the Flemington Racecourse. A century-and-a-half later, the role that racecourse may have played in the flooding of its neighbours has created a flashpoint in Victorian politics.
Army dinghies patrol Navigator Street in Maribyrnong during the 1974 flood.Credit: John Hart, The Age
After the 1974 disaster, the Maribyrnong community fought for action to protect their homes. A 1986 government report found that while still not ideal, a flood-retarding basin – a structure that could capture rising water then slowly release it – near Melbourne Airport at Arundel could be the best option to avoid future disaster.
And then nothing happened for decades – save for one large piece of flood infrastructure: the 2.5-metre-high flood wall built in 2007 by the Victoria Racing Club to protect Flemington racecourse.
The wall was supported by the Labor government but opposed by three local councils, an active community and the state opposition. “We were concerned it would impact on the flood zone and that there hadn’t been a proper process,” recalls former Liberal premier Ted Baillieu.
Meanwhile, the Arundel retarding basin was rejected by the Labor government in 2006 over concerns it would harm the environment, flood farms and, at $80 million, cost too much.
When Flemington’s wall was approved, one Maribyrnong resident, the late Shane Trewin, asked a question: “Are horses more valuable than humans?”
Flemington Racecourse submerged by floodwaters in 1974.Credit: The Age Archives
Trewin wasn’t around to have his question answered but on October 14 last year, his widow, Jane, saw her home destroyed, while the home of the Melbourne Cup was unscathed.
In the 1974 flood, Flemington Racecourse, which was built on the Maribyrnong floodplain, made up a quarter of the area flooded. In 2022, none of that water hit the racecourse.
“Pretty happy we have left a legacy for future of Flemington,” former VRC chief executive Dale Monteith tweeted on the day of the floods. He later deleted the tweet.
Dale Monteith’s tweetCredit: Twitter
Premier Daniel Andrews was asked the day after the floods about how the racecourse wall was ever permitted. It was, he told reporters, not his issue: “We’re happy to let Melbourne Water speak to that.”
Some of the destruction in October need not have been so extensive had Melbourne Water’s early alert system – established as a direct result of that 1974 flood – worked.
This week, The Age revealed how badly it had failed. The latest system, installed in 2015, was meant to be state-of-the-art and trigger advance community warnings. Instead, at dawn on October 14, residents fled with just moments’ notice to pack their belongings. The river peaked 1.8 metres higher than predicted by Melbourne Water the night before.
In Maribyrnong alone, the flood hit 525 homes, four times the tally of 1974 – in part because of the increased development on grasslands. October’s floods also spread to Avondale Heights where part of a retirement village went underwater, damaging 47 homes. That village, as The Age also revealed this week, was expanded after 2016 onto what was once considered a floodplain.
With the rise of global warming, floods in Australia have become more intense. The flood that hit Lismore in NSW last February was among the biggest in modern Australian history. In regional Victoria in 2022, entire towns went underwater – Rochester had 85 per cent of homes inundated. Echuca residents were encircled for days by floodwaters.
So regular was flooding in 2022 that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned a national discussion was needed. “Stop development on floodplains,” Albanese said, with federal Labor flagging government-funded buybacks of at-risk homes could be necessary.
A father and daughter inspect a flooded Lismore street in March 2022.Credit: Dan Peled/Getty Images
Not only are floods becoming more frequent, they are also getting more destructive, warns Risk Frontiers climate scientist Stuart Browning. “They’re actually getting larger and will keep getting larger because when the atmosphere warms, it’s able to carry more moisture, so rain events carry more rain than they used to.”
Planning experts have been warning about the level of residential development allowed to occur on flood-prone land. Floods create the most financial damage of any natural disaster. Insurance Council data shows the NSW and Queensland floods last February and March cost $5.7 billion, making them the most expensive natural disaster in Australian history. By comparison, the 2019-20 bushfires cost $2.3 billion.
Aerial images show how much development has occurred along the Maribyrnong River in the past 20 years. Thousands of new homes, all crowding themselves out for a view of the river, have been built — each pouring more concrete into land that once soaked up rainfall, leaving it nowhere to go when a big downpour hits.
University of Melbourne associate professor Brian Cook wants to see a moratorium on development on floodplains. “We’re encroaching into floodplains in little bits, nibbling at the edges, and that’s putting things in harm’s way and reducing the capacity of the river.”
The Maribyrnong River floods often. Since records began in 1891, the river has risen 13 times at the suburb of Maribyrnong to a remarkable three metres higher than usual levels.
Stan Lipski, whose Maribyrnong home flooded in October, has lived in the suburb most of his life and knows what the river is capable of.Credit: Jason South
Stan Lipski, 72, grew up in Maribyrnong and learnt to swim in the river, dodging animal carcasses that floated by from meat abattoirs upstream, or the Newmarket saleyards in Kensington downstream. “They treated it like their sewer,” he says. “It was putrid, but we didn’t care.”
Having lived in the suburb for all but 12 years of his life, he adores the river, but he knows how ferocious it can be. “I’ve always told people coming to the area that it’s not a matter of if [it floods], it’s a matter of when … given successive governments have done nothing about flood mitigation.”
In October, Lipski first learnt his home would flood via a 4.25am evacuation text message. “Who the hell is sitting on their phone then?” he asks. “If God forbid there is another impending disaster, they need to treat it as such.”
Linh Nguyen’s family of five lost everything to the October floods.Credit: Jason South
On the night of the flood, Linh Nguyen put her three children to bed unconcerned, only to be woken by the SES banging on the door at 5am. Her family fled with only their passports and enough clothing for one night away.
The water surged to a metre inside the house, destroying the home and all their furniture, photos and toys. “To have your kids’ stuff all gone … that broke me,” Nguyen says. “The warning was inadequate. They should have given us extra hours. What we lost was immeasurable.”
Even if early warning systems for the river’s flood-prone areas had worked last October, it wouldn’t have helped some residents of the Rivervue Retirement Village in Avondale Heights. Their homes were not designated a flood risk – and there are now questions about whether they should have been.
The land’s planning rules changed in 2016 after a planning panel supported a Melbourne Water amendment that moved the one-in-100-year flood risk area closer to the river. The Age revealed this week that the sole person on this panel was Nick Wimbush – who was also appointed by Melbourne Water in December to lead its inquiry into the October flooding. Wimbush resigned on Tuesday, with the water authority seeking to combat any perceived conflicts of interest; the inquiry’s scope includes examining the flooding of Rivervue.
Karen McKay, whose Rivervue retirement village home flooded in October 2022, at her temporary accommodation in Cowes.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Karen McKay, 76, lived in Maribyrnong for 46 years with her late husband, Jim. They moved to Rivervue in 2019 to live a more comfortable life without flood risk. She had experienced floods before, and on the night before the October disaster, she had a curious feeling: the river felt as still as it did before the 1974 flood.
“Something wasn’t right,” says McKay. “There’s something eerie about a flood when it comes up, it’s so silent.”
Still, she was convinced her home would be safe. It was what had been most important to Jim. Instead, the river came surging in. “I lost everything,” she says. “I’m still looking at it in disbelief. Our biggest fear had come.”
Two days after the October flood and amid a mounting furore over the Flemington Racecourse flood wall, the Premier announced Melbourne Water would conduct an inquiry that would include examining the impact of the controversial levee.
The chair of the government-owned authority is John Thwaites – water minister when the wall was approved by the Bracks Labor government. To quash concerns about the inquiry’s independence, Thwaites excused himself from involvement.
That was just the start of the review’s problems. Following public anger over Wimbush’s appointment and the inquiry’s scope, which excludes warning procedures and future mitigation measures, it is now expected to run parallel with a far less limited parliamentary inquiry.
While they wait for an outcome, residents are still pleading for government investment in flood mitigation to safeguard their homes, with a recent petition attracting almost 2000 signatures.
Last year, Andrews said his government wouldn’t build more dams, and described the October flood as being about “patterns of weather that are unique”. This argument makes no sense to Maribyrnong residents who remember 1974. “History repeated itself because nothing was done for the last 50 years,” says Selin Lanzafame.
Flood mitigation is complex. University of Melbourne associate professor Brian Cook says levees and dams can be effective but also promote further floodplain development, create a false sense of security, and eventually, they fail.
Lismore’s 10-metre-high levee, built in 2005, was easily overtopped when the flood of February 2022 peaked at 14.4 metres. Lismore mayor Steve Krieg wants to raise the levee further. “If we don’t do it, we die as a city,” he has said.
Despite his reservations, Cook says governments need to consider investing in mitigation to protect certain valuable at-risk urban areas, and to do so according to a 200-year flood level. Maribyrnong, as a growing suburb only seven kilometres from the CBD, may well be worth saving.
“If you’ve got land use changing the hydrology, climate change affecting the whole system and massively increasing assets at risk ... you’re going to be on the hook for disaster relief worth billions and billions of dollars over the next 100 years or so. So tear that Band-Aid off, bite the bullet and fix it.”
SES rescuers move Maribyrnong residents to higher ground on October 14.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Browning says hard decisions must be made about mitigation or moving people out of flood-prone areas. “It goes off the agenda when we get a dry period and we think more about bushfires, but that’s actually the time to think and plan more for floods.”
Some residents aren’t waiting around for the government to act: there are plans to rebuild homes at a higher level or even DIY jobs of blocking air vents and installing knee-high screens in doorways.
An old newspaper article features Lee’s late grandfather, Mario.Credit: Margaret Gordon
The Lanzafames will continue to support the community effort to see proper mitigation built, but they are struggling to find hope. Some days, they think about moving, other days they manage to hold onto just how much they love their life by the river.
Lee recounts how his grandfather went to every single flood meeting in his day, “and then got nothing”.
“He had a few heart attacks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the cause.”
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