1956 floods

Originally published August 1956

ONE of the biggest and longest running news stories in the history of Sunraysia Daily was the 1956 flood of the Murray and Darling rivers.

The floods devastated the region over months with an estimated cost of more than 500,000 pounds.

Thousands of workers spent day and night sandbagging and constructing and patrolling levee banks as river levels passed the previous 1931 peak flood level.

Hundreds of glasshouses belonging to market gardeners at Buronga were flooded at the height of the floods, while levee banks throughout the region, including Mildura, Gol Gol, Wentworth, Curlwaa, Robinvale and Euston, were under constant threat.

Some of the huge levee banks broke during the crisis, destroying produce, cutting roads and flooding homes.

At one point the main levee bank at Mildura broke after council workmen risked their lives in a two-hour bid to hold the badly leaking section of the bank.

Thousands of acres of land from the Mildura Bridge to Nichols Point were under water as a five-foot high wall of water poured through the levee.

Buronga residents were urged to “get out”, while River Road between Mildura and Merbein was cut to traffic.

An emergency committee was formed to co-ordinate flood relief with as many as 100 families forced from their houses.

Water surrounded Wentworth and the old gaol was opened as a home for evacuees.

Volunteer sandbaggers came from across the country to help as more volunteers were urged to join the effort.

Appeals made over Radio 3MA alerted volunteers to areas in most danger, particularly in the Nichols Point and Wentworth areas.

The river became so high that water was rising up drainage mains and sandbagging was needed around the shafts to stop them flowing over and flooding the land from behind the levee banks.

Heavy rains during July 1956 made the battle even more difficult with transport drivers going without food and sleep for up to 19 hours to bring their vehicles through muddy roads from Melbourne to Mildura.

The Army and Royal Australian Air Forces were called in to help with a Dakota aircraft from Sydney bringing in 13,000 sandbags for use on levee banks at Wentworth.

Mildura’s main danger spot became the bank holding water off Cureton Avenue between Etiwanda and Benetook avenues.

The collapse of the levee at the cemetery added to the concerns at Cureton Avenue.

A funeral was conducted by boat for the first time in 25 years because of the floods.

The coffin was placed in a flat-bottomed boat at the staging of the service before being rowed across to the Mildura Cemetery.

The cemetery became an island when water broke through emergency banks and a mile of floodwater separated the cemetery and the closest dry road.

The river level, at the peak of the floods, reached 37 feet 6 inches (11.43 metres), compared to the normal pool level of 16 feet 10 inches (5.13 metres) — a difference of 6.30 metres.

The 1931 flood reached 10.72 metres, while records of paddle boat skippers put the pre-settlement flood of 1870 at 11.65 metres at what is now Mildura.

At the height of the floods from August 11 to August 17, the Darling River was estimated to be up to 112km wide.

The humble Ferguson tractor came to the rescue of Wentworth at the junction of the two great rivers and to this day is still hailed as the town’s saviour.

They were the only size tractor which could fit on the town’s levee banks at the time.

Wentworth almost went under water, but the little tractors were able to climb up onto the levee bank and scoop the rising waters away.

A rally to pay homage to the humble machines is held every five years.

A monument to the work done by the little tractors now stands in the centre of town in dedication to the service the machines, and the men and women who used them, to save the town.