Cobram SES member Mitch Heaton, deputy unit controller Kate Goldsmith, Cobram NAB branch manager Faz Ahmed and Caylea Blake with the new temporary flood levees.
Photo by
Abby Green
Hours spent filling and loading sandbags will soon be a thing of the past for the Cobram SES, thanks to a $20,000 NAB grant allowing the unit to purchase new flood levees.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
The Cobram SES unit was one of 23 community organisations across Australia to receive a NAB Community Grant, using it to purchase 29 metres of lightweight temporary flood levees.
Deputy unit controller of community engagement and resilience Kate Goldsmith said the unit was in a state of disbelief.
“We’re absolutely overwhelmingly pleased and thankful,” she said.
“Thank you just doesn’t seem enough.”
The levees are made from lightweight plastic and are one metre high and one metre wide, designed in an ‘L’ shape.
“The reason it's designed like that is so the weight of the water will hold the levees in place so it won’t topple over as the water begins to rise,” she said.
“There's always going to be a little bit of seepage in any sort of product, but the volume of water it will hold back to help mitigate flooding will be incredible.
“To have the ability to quickly put that levee in to stop the water and redirect it where it needs to go to protect townships, properties and critical infrastructure is really, really exciting.”
The Cobram CFA testing the new levees with water from the firetruck.
Photo by
Abby Green
Mrs Goldsmith said the new levees would also provide a significant environmental benefit, as sandbags cannot be reused, whereas the levees can simply be washed and reused.
“There’s also the recovery time involved in manually moving sandbags, and recovery time is really key for communities being able to reopen infrastructure quicker,” she said.
“The required number of volunteers to sandbag a section of road at the height of water is hours and hours of filling them, putting them out, waiting for the water to go past and then taking them back again.
“We’re a small community, and all our volunteers are community members. So if our town is impacted and we need volunteers, those people are impacted too.”
Cobram NAB branch small business banker Caylea Blake said she was pleased to see the grant stay local.
“We were given some stats prior and there hadn’t been many grants in regional Victoria,” she said.
“So we were giving out flyers and encouraging community members and organisations to apply.
“I really wanted it to go to someone in our community, so I was excited when I got the email saying a Cobram community group had been successful.”
12°C