Still recovering as huge flood toll revealed

The Greater Shepparton City Council Municipal Recovery and Resilience Plan 2023-25 was tabled at council’s monthly meeting on December 19.

The plan is designed to be a living document, which will be updated as required for the duration of the recovery program.

Mayor Shane Sali said the plan was an important step in the recovery journey and that it would help ensure the region was well-equipped for future emergencies.

“The 2022 flood event had a devastating impact on the community and our recovery is continuing,” he said.

“If we were ever faced with that emergency circumstance again, everyone would be a lot clearer on their role because you have this information now, you have that lived experience, we know how to manage things even better than we did then, and I still think we did a great job.

“We know there’s people who aren’t back in their homes yet, so it’s still very challenging for them.”

The report lays out the enormity of the impact of the disaster.

Some of its findings include:

The council’s flood recovery program aims to take a long-term perspective on outcomes, ensure recovery efforts are monitored and be adaptive to changing needs.

The report emphasises that to achieve sustained recovery, affected communities must be involved in the program through two-way dialogue.

It also points out that the floods highlighted the need for a second Goulburn River crossing, apart from the causeway between Mooroopna and Shepparton, which currently takes more than 30,000 vehicles per day, due to it being cut off during the floods.

The availability of flood mapping information for individual properties via the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority portal was invaluable, according to the plan, although during the flood event there was some difficulty accessing the portal due to user loads.

The report also shows that recovery efforts are still in progress, including protecting assets from further Goulburn River erosion, auditing and repairing roads, improving drainage, enhancing the resilience of assets as they’re repaired, consideration of the relocation of some assets vulnerable to flooding and providing support to impacted residents.

Yorta Yorta man Cr Greg James said it was vital Indigenous perspectives were considered in the plan.

“It’s really important for our mob, for that healing process and our connection to Country that we have a really vital role to play in this plan as well, and I have no doubt we have, but it is essential for us to be involved as caretakers of this country and environmental issues that we have a real stake to play in the planning,” he said.

Cr Seema Abdullah told the meeting the recovery would have short-, medium- and long-term aspects.

“Some of the long-term activities are going to include continued advocacy for a second river crossing, a bypass and also government buybacks for flood-prone properties,” Cr Abdullah said.

“It also talks about retiring vulnerable properties, so these are all very long-term, but strategic decisions, and it’s all outlined in the plan.”

Deputy Mayor Sam Spinks said the plan would help the region deal with future floods.

“This becomes a document that hopefully we will never need again, but should we, we have it available, and it continues to gather the learnings and the ways we can increase our resilience for future events, flood or otherwise,” she said.

Although the document considers the future, Cr Anthony Brophy told the meeting it did not mean council was moving on without regard for the people still recovering from the flood’s impacts.

“I just want to let those people know that we haven’t forgotten, we won’t forget, but we will roll up our sleeves and look forward in a positive, strategic way and with great optimism,” he said.