Clean-up begins: Mud cakes the floor inside Wayne and Benjamin Anderson's Mooroopna home, which was flooded. Photo: Monique Preston
Photo by
Monique Preston
A pile with fridges, washing machines and mattresses sits high on the nature strip outside Wayne and Benjamin Anderson’s Mooroopna home.
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Inside, a sodden couch is in the lounge room, too heavy with water for them to lift yet.
The floors are caked with mud.
Floodwater from the Goulburn River went knee-high inside the father and son’s house on Echuca Rd.
Wayne has lived in the house for a long time.
He uses the old golf driving range near KidsTown off the side of the causeway between Mooroopna and Shepparton as his flood marker to know if the water will reach his place.
On the morning of Saturday, October 16, he said there were just “puddles” around it.
Difficult task: Benjamin and Wayne Anderson with the pile of furniture and white goods they had to throw out after their Mooroopna home flooded. Photo: Monique Preston
Photo by
Monique Preston
Three or four hours later it was three quarters of the way up the walls of the building and they knew the river had risen fast.
Benjamin said when the floodwater reached their house on Sunday, there were only six or seven minutes between when it came under the fence until it was ankle deep in the backyard.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
The shed was the first thing to go under as floodwater rushed around.
They had lifted as many things as possible up off the ground.
The pool table was not one of them — too heavy for the two of them to lift.
Wayne has an impressive collection of stubby holders and beer cans on the walls, with a lot staying dry.
Reminder: You can clearly see the height the water got to by the mark on the side fence in the front yard of Wayne and Benjamin Anderson's Echuca Rd home. They say the water was much higher in the backyard. Photo: Monique Preston
Photo by
Monique Preston
Other memorabilia lower down was not as lucky.
They had sandbagged the front and back doors of the house, but Benjamin said the water came into the house from underneath it first.
“The water came through the floorboards before it got over the top of the sandbags,” he said.
“We were shocked at how quickly it came through.”
Wayne Anderson standing in his floodwater at his back door.
Wayne said he stayed at the house until 5pm on Sunday, October 16, keeping an eye on the water level on Echuca Rd out the front of their house.
He stayed that long because he was worried about “the lowlifes” wandering the streets.
As he was getting his Harley-Davidson motorcycle out ready to leave, water was already knee-high in the street.
When he returned after the flood, Wayne was pleased to see family photos hanging on the walls were all safe.
“While it is sad and devastating this has happened, it’s little things (that have been destroyed),” Benjamin said.
Muddy floor: While they have started the process of cleaning up after the flood, there is still a long way to go for Mooroopna’s Wayne and Benjamin Anderson. Photo: Monique Preston
Photo by
Monique Preston
Benjamin came back several times to check when they would be able to get into the house to see the extent of the damage caused.
It was knee-high over the road for a couple of days, but by lunchtime Wednesday, October 19 the water had gone.
When they evacuated, Wayne went to his other son’s house in Kyabram while Benjamin stayed locally with a work colleague so he could continue working.
Wayne and Benjamin Anderson's home in Echuca Rd, Mooroopna, was inundated with flood water.
It seems they will not be able to live at their home again for quite some time.
While the house is insured for flooding, Wayne said he could not see it being liveable before Christmas, and probably for a lot longer than that.
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