Seymour flood hearing reports by Jordyn Grubisic
Residents remaining homeless and the associated ongoing mental health ramifications were some of the post-flood issues submitted to the Seymour hearing of the Inquiry into the 2022 Flood Event in Victoria.
Wattle Motel owner Shelly Hamilton said her children remained affected by the floods, with her eldest daughter requiring ongoing counselling support.
Ms Hamilton returned home on the night of the flood after attempting to get sandbags – however, she was too late with her home beginning to flood.
“I could see my little six-year-old on the table and my 12-year-old was crying, saying ‘Mumma I tried to push the water out but the water kept coming back into the house’,” she said.
“Then from there we walked out without clothes and lived with our friend for a couple of weeks, then living with relatives in Euroa and Melbourne before coming back to Seymour when the kids started school.
“My 12-year-old was really struggling. She was crying saying ‘I can’t go back to school because I’ll be embarrassed, I lost all of my stuff and I lost my school uniform’.
“She loved swimming and would always compete – apparently, she was the best at the butterfly and won a medal – but now she refuses to go back into the pool. She hasn’t been in one ever since we got flooded.”
Ms Hamilton said the school provided a counsellor once a month for her daughter after she was unable to eat or sleep without dreaming of the flood, but her daughter no longer received that support.
Along with her own family’s struggles, Ms Hamilton provided accommodation at her motel for families in crises.
“Shepparton’s providing that support now and I guess for me, what’s important is support for the victims,” she said.
Community Recovery Committee co-chair Neil Beer said many Seymour residents remained unaccounted for.
“High Street, as well as residential homes, have a high proportion of apartments and units – a large portion of these are now unoccupied,” he said.
“In some cases, people are living in caravan parks, in other cases living with relatives, and … in some cases, we don’t know their whereabouts.
“This is a terrible situation, but we have to face facts.”
Mr Beer said there were several units that remained empty in Seymour, with 284 homes affected by the flood.
“Obviously, the financial strain on those that own the units have been renting them out – it’s probably prohibitive in some of those units being resurrected to their previous condition,” he said.
Read more from the hearing: