Seven weeks on, Charlton is still feeling flood pain

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This was published 13 years ago

Seven weeks on, Charlton is still feeling flood pain

By Darren Gray

GAIL Smyth can see straight through her walls, and if she felt so inclined, she could walk through them too. The internal walls in her Charlton home have been ripped out, after ''nine foot tall'' mould was discovered growing in them.

It makes it easier to get around the house, to see who is at the door - she has a constant stream of visitors - and to see where her husband, Stewart, is. But there the advantages stop abruptly.

Gail Smyth and her dog, Fleur, at her Charlton home, from which the internal walls  had to be removed when mould was found to be growing in them.

Gail Smyth and her dog, Fleur, at her Charlton home, from which the internal walls had to be removed when mould was found to be growing in them.Credit: Craig Abraham

Mrs Smyth isn't beginning a renovation. She is simply trying to make her house clean and liveable after dirty, smelly floodwater spilled into it in January. Her bed, dishwasher and fridge are the only major items that survived, she says, sitting at a donated kitchen table. Other donated furniture can be seen through the wall in her living room: two couches, chairs and a television cabinet.

She has repeatedly lost her voice or gone hoarse since the water entered her 103-year-old home and has developed a chest complaint. She blames it all on the mould. ''People are starting to have respiratory complaints and asthmatics are having more asthma attacks because of the mould and whatever bacteria also came in with the water.''

The problems Mrs Smyth faces are like those of many country people seven weeks after some of the state's worst floods devastated towns in central and northern Victoria. Many home and business owners are facing damage bills or losses of more than $100,000 without insurance, and some farms remain under water up to two metres deep that could stay for weeks, if not months.

To protect her health, Mrs Smyth, 57, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last year, recently moved into her son's house. She and her husband will repair their home, but face a huge bill. She estimates the building damage at about $150,000 and contents losses at about $55,000. She hopes, but is not confident, that her insurance company will pay up.

She says her much-loved town, where she has lived for 36 years, is struggling. ''It's the sadness you feel when you go down the street. It's the emptiness you feel … nobody is smiling any more.''

The nearby health service has a mould problem of its own.

Fluffy white mould grows on the wall near the clinic, and there is mould in various spots on the hospital corridor roof. Black mould is threatening to take over the cupboards in the campus manager's office.

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Despite weeks of cleaning, the Charlton campus of the East Wimmera Health Service seems an eternity away from being ''hospital clean'', if in fact that's possible. It's not known if the building can be saved, or whether a new hospital and aged-care service will need to be built.

A small remnant of the floodwater, which was about 60 centimetres deep in the building, lies on a kitchen floor in the aged-care wing when The Age visits. The face on the small lifeless body is hidden, but the tail sticking out the back is distinctively rodent. The mouse would have been washed there by the water, says health service chairman Ken Round.

''These were virtually people's homes,'' he says, walking past the aged-care rooms. The damage was extensive. ''Every now and then water just comes up for no reason,'' he says. ''It looks like a demolition site, doesn't it?''

Mr Round welcomes the state government's guarantee that the town will have a hospital and aged-care service. But the straight-talking country builder wants it sooner rather than later. ''My concern is that the community needs a health service, and I just want the government to basically get on with it. Make a decision on whether they're going to fix this one up or build a new one, so that the community knows what's going on,'' he says.

A medical clinic is running out of a ''MASH tent'' at the local school; a more permanent temporary clinic is also being established. But neither has the acute hospital beds and nursing home beds the town badly wants.

Most of Charlton's flood-hit businesses have reopened. Some popular businesses have not, though they say they will, including the Boyz Cafe, and the Beatniks Cafe and Restaurant. The town's Rex Theatre, an art deco gem, sustained about $200,000 damage, with its carpet, electrical wiring and most of its seats destroyed. Projectionist and deputy mayor David Pollard is working hard to reopen the doors.

Matt and Jacinta Holmes-Brown, owners of the House to Home Decorating shop, are well practised at recovering from disaster. About five years ago a B-double truck came around the nearby bend too fast, slid along the road and clipped the front of their shop, smashing the windows.

Every bit of stock inside the first four or five metres had to be written off, Mr Holmes-Brown says, because you can't sell carpet and other goods that might contain shards of glass. Then in September about 15 centimetres of water flooded the shop, destroying floor coverings and closing the business for three days.

But these events were overshadowed by January's flood, which brought water one-metre deep inside. Frogs croaked and fish swam where customers usually stood to ask questions about curtains and carpets.

''It was one huge mess. We lost lots of stock, well over $150,000 worth,'' Mr Holmes-Brown says.

''We lost all our furniture, we lost our fixtures and fittings …We've got a 40-foot container out the back which we use for our mattresses. That had about $30,000 of mattresses in it; every single one was ruined.''

Mr Holmes-Brown sees the flood's impact on the town's residents and their houses when he visits to give quotes. ''You feel almost guilty that you're going to have to charge them to put a product in. It is an awful, awful thing to have to go and see everyone's loss five and six times a day,'' he says.

Normally, customers are excited about redecorating a home, but the Charlton flood has changed all that.

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