Chris and Jay Waters build flood levee around Maryborough home

A Maryborough family spent two days building their own flood levee around their home but the might of the Mary River proved too great.

A Maryborough family’s valiant effort to keep the floodwaters out of their Queen Street home has failed.

Courtney Azzopardi, Jay Waters and his mother Chris spent two days constructing a levee around their home as the flood waters bore down on Maryborough.

After the lower part of the home was extensively flooded and damaged in January’s 10m flood, the family tried to fight back this time, using tarps and sandbags around their property in an effort to keep the floodwaters out.

But the water found a way through.

Despite the inundation, Mr Waters was remaining positive.

“It could have been a lot worse,” he said.

Queen St residents Courtney Azzopardi, Jay Waters and his mother Chris spent two days building a levee around their home.

“We got all the mud out of the house, which is a good thing.”

Mr Waters said the floodwaters went about 40-47cm up the walls of the home.

The clean-up and repairs from the January inundation were well underway when the second flood hit.

“Now we’re flooded again and we have to start from scratch.”

The levee attracted attention from across the region as many watched and waited to see if it would hold.

“Blood, sweat and tears went into that one,” Ms Azzopardi said.

“Clearly there are some minor things we do need to sort out.

“We had a weak spot in a corner just at the edge of Queen St.”

Mr Waters said there also seemed to be some sort of stormwater issue.

Queen St residents Courtney Azzopardi, Jay Waters and his mother Chris spent two days constructing a levee around their home.

Maryborough family builds own flood levee

A Maryborough mother and son plan to stop the floodwaters that are inundating Maryborough with a levee made of tarps and sandbags surrounding their home.

Chris and Jay Waters, who run a physical therapy business from their Queen Street home, suffered a huge financial loss in the January flood.

They were able to move their expensive equipment out of their work space under the house in January, but their cabinetry, air conditioner and flooring were destroyed.

When Chris and Jay heard another flood was coming less than seven weeks after the first, they were determined to mitigate the damage this time around.

That led to a mammoth two day effort to construct a levee using tarps and sandbags around their fence and home.

Saturday and Sunday were spent frantically filling sandbags and transporting them back to their home.

Jay said they didn’t want to use pre-prepared sandbags because they didn’t want to take them from others who needed them, but might not be able to fill them themselves.

While filling their sandbags, they were amazed by the community spirit they saw, including a rural firefighter who stayed at the site for nine hours, filling the sandbags for others to use.

Noticing the volunteers had no water, Jay bought them some drinks and took them back to the site.

“People have really pulled together, it’s been so good to see,” he said.

Sitting in their living room on Monday, Chris said about 10cm of water had come into the home, but that was well below last time at the same height of about 9.8m when about 20cm of floodwater had inundated the property.

While the water is creeping up over the floor, last time it was above their ankles.

Both are sunburnt and exhausted, but they feel they’ve had a win.

For the two, the improvised levee is in experiment, with the second flood causing more stress but also providing them with an opportunity to think about how they could floodproof their home.

“It’s a learning curve,” Jay said.

The work space under their home is still bare from the January floods and they are hoping that if their levee works, as it is so far, they will be able to install permanent floodproof fencing around the property.

“We have nothing left to lose,” Chris said.

“We’re just trying to mitigate the damage, so we don’t have to go through the two to three weeks of drying.

“This is the sort of thing that sinks small business.”

Chris and Jay know this flood will be bigger than the January flood, but they know they’ve done all they can to keep the flood out of their home.

Now all they can do is watch and wait as the river continues to rise.