The flood waters are receding fast. In fact fast enough for us to send in an advanced Navy team to assess the damage. Norm has reported that we may have been a little luckier this time as we only got 6 inches of water through the clubhouse itself and that was relatively clean water so a good carpet clean may be all that is required. The machinery has survived relatively unscathed apart from the cows eating part of the Kubota ignition wiring and a little water in the old fergy.
So thanks to the Efforts of Norm , Bruce and Glen on Friday the cost to the club should be minimal. I would also like to thank Norm Morrish Daniel Jenkins , Frank McPherson and Peter Harrison for swimming in today to assess and start some clean-up activities.
At this stage we will leave the field closed for probably a week at least to allow it to dry out a little and to clean up the clubhouse and other work to make the place safe again.
Now we probably also need to consider that these flood events may be coming more common in the future. The catchment areas that supply the creeks that run by our field have changed dramatically over the last few years with lots of hard surfaces ie roads and footpaths etc suddenly covering what were very recently farmers paddocks. The water which used to soak into the paddocks now flows off into the creeks and drainage channels at a much higher rate . I don't think that we can rely on Melb Water to come up with any speedy solutions so we may need to rethink how we protect our property and/or how our buildings are set up. I will get the committee together in the next week or so for a brainstorming session on some cost effective ways of improving our flood recovery.
Regards
David Walsh
Prez