Seymour flood hearing reports by Jordyn Grubisic
Evidence of resident-led recovery efforts submitted to the Seymour hearing of the Inquiry into the 2022 Flood Event in Victoria highlighted gaps in all levels of government emergency services procedures.
Community Recovery Committee co-chair Neil Beer said local organisations provided support that was lacking during and post the flood.
“The sporting clubs, the churches, the SES, the CFA and various other authorities – the local contribution by these organisations, individuals and volunteers during and post the flood is absolutely outstanding,” he said.
“We are fortunate that the Seymour community and its organisations have a very strong support base looking after the wellbeing of its residents.”
Seymour Football and Netball Club were key participants in the community recovery, undertaking cleanup while Mitchell Shire Council were unable to begin the recovery process.
Seymour Football and Netball Club president Gerard O’Sullivan said he proposed a number of volunteers from the club band together to ‘begin the enormous task of cleaning up our town’.
“We put a message out to our members on Facebook to gauge the amount of time they could provide. The response was instant, with approximately 70 of our members ready to go, we started the clean-up process. There was an incredible response from the local community,” he said.
“Council provided information that they were unable to begin the recovery process right away and, at that time, council advised affected community members to contact the Seymour Football Netball Club as we were putting together clean-up teams.”
Mr O’Sullivan said the cleanup process was important to remove all the rubbish to help alleviate the mental anguish of the flood-affected homes’ occupants.
“The first five days were the highest impact and there were still volunteers on the ground helping out two weeks later,” he said.
Mr O’Sullivan’s evidence included the community not appearing to have an adequate emergency plan; council’s limitations in its capacity to assist towns and individual businesses in the event of a disaster; and access to the transfer station during cleanup being completely disjointed.
“There was also a delay to the deployment of Army access to task, despite Puckapunyal being ready and willing to mobilise,” he said.
Mr Beer said evidence showed many residents and business owners were not ‘adequately informed’ of the flood situation with ‘virtually no information’ coming from the Shepparton Incident Control Centre.
“I’d like to mention also the Standard Emergency Warning System, SEWS, in many cases, in my opinion, it should have been advised but it wasn’t,” he said.
“The instigation of the SEWS has to be done by an incident controller. When it is instigated, just to put it simply, it’s a siren-type sound going across mobile phones, TV, radio – it’s good coverage. I’m yet to speak to anybody that says that was initiated in this area.
“It was local brigades, local community members that jumped in and did what they could do.”
Mr Beer also raised the difficulties of residents submitting claims to insurance.
“Insurance premiums and the increases as a result – there’s been cases where insurance companies are not prepared to reinsure or the premiums and excesses that have come about are completely impractical,” he said.
The Federal Government has launched an inquiry into insurance companies regarding the 2022 floods with submissions closing October 31.
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Read more from the hearing:
Hearing recap: Everything you need to know
Insurance and grant barriers to business support
Farmers feel frustrated and forgotten
Council highlight lack of resources
Hidden impacts of the flood revealed
