Residents prepare to lose everything in Echuca pocket not protected by flood levee

Residents have resigned themselves to losing everything, saying they’ve been “abandoned” as their little slice of Echuca, unprotected by the flood levee, prepares to go under.

The sound of excavators and trucks could be heard in Echuca throughout the night as the region rushed to build flood levees to protect homes and infrastructure in low lying areas near the Murray River.

Major flooding is expected to hit Echuca and Moama from Wednesday, with the river level expected to reach 94.77m (AHD).

But dozens of houses located in an eastern pocket of the northern Victorian border town will not be protected by a flood levee, leaving them dejected and exposed to continually rising flood waters.

They have expressed feeling abandoned, after learning that authorities would not work to protect their homes from the impending threat of the Murray River.

Moama St resident Myles Boal has been living on the street for more than a decade.

Myles and Jane Boal and Ronnie and Valerie Myers on Moama St, Echuca as they prepare for their pocket to go under. Picture: Jason Edwards

He lived through the floods in 2011, but understood the impending flood emergency would be “a lot worse”.

Mr Boal has been preparing his home against the river, already flooding the end of his street, since last week.

A local business delivered 25 pellets of sandbags containing about 36-tonne of sand and since then the community has banded together to help each other out.

About 40 people have worked together to pile sandbags around properties on the street.

Mr Boal said he and others felt “abandoned”.

“We are fending for ourselves,” he said.

He believes “it was too late” when preparations started as the Murray was already starting flood into his street.

Now, the flood levee is being built around them, dividing the suburb, and he hasn’t seen one emergency service truck come down his street to offer assistance.

The area left outside the levee includes about 50 homes of families, young people and the elderly.

While he has done what he can to protect his property, he has accepted it will likely be inundated if the river swells to the level it is predicted to.

“What can you do? You think you’ve done enough but then they predict something else and you’re buggered.”

Residents told Leader there had been a plan to build a levee to protect the street after past floods but it had never eventuated.

“Then we wouldn’t have this problem,” Mr Boal said.

Echuca prepares for the impending floods from both the Murray River and the Campaspe River. Authorities have started building a Levy and also lifting an existing levy, cutting some parts of the community off. Picture: Jason Edwards

He is going to stay at his home despite the evacuation advice.

While water and electricity will soon be cut off, he has a generator.

“You just don’t know what will happen. People might knock stuff off, unfortunately people like that are out there.

“So I’ll just stay here and do what I can do.”

Other families in the area have been building their own flood levees and trenches, with help from other community members travelling the streets and offering a helping hand.

At one home on Goulburn St, three generations of one family had come together to help their dad and grandpa protect his home of 50 years.

Leader has been told an elderly woman evacuated from the area on Monday had left her house sandbagged, but her family returned on Tuesday to discover they had been snatched.

Community members have rallied together to sandbag her house again.