‘Day from hell’: how family survived an inland tsunami
Stephanie Gardiner |
A group of women took refuge from a low-lying flood in a rural village, chatting and drinking warm cups of tea and coffee on a verandah under blue skies.
Just 25 minutes later, Anne South heard her daughter scream as a torrent of water suddenly smashed a glass door at their home in Eugowra, in central western NSW, on the morning of November 14, 2022.
Within moments Ms South, her daughter and six-day-old granddaughter were desperately fighting for their lives as a swirling, roaring “inland tsunami” engulfed them.
“It was coming over the tops of trees, it was terrifying,” Ms South told a coronial inquest examining the floods at Orange courthouse on Tuesday.
“It filled the sky as it was coming along, I was looking at it and thinking, ‘I’ve got to run’.”
Inside the house minutes later, Ms South stacked a bar stool on top of a table to lift her daughter and the newborn into the roof cavity, while she helped a friend sit on a high bench.
“The water was just swirling, like rapids and everything started to go,” she said.
“The way it happened, you wouldn’t have stood a chance if you were out there.”
Ms South feared for her neighbour, 85-year-old Ljubisa “Les” Vugec, who she had spoken to over the fence as the water rose.
Mr Vugec was struggling to hold on to his beloved, frightened dog when Ms South last saw him.
“I told him, ‘You need to go inside, close your door and try to get up high’,” Ms South recalled.
“I told him to let the dog go at one stage, but he didn’t.”
Ms South lived on the eastern side of Eugowra, which had avoided major flooding in previous record-breaking disasters in 1990 and 1950, and was generally considered a safe zone.
But the destructive flood defied all expectations when the Mandagery Creek peaked at 11.02 metres, 10 times its usual level and more than a metre higher than the previous record set in April 1950.
The inquest is examining the deaths of Mr Vugec, whose body was found 1.5km from his home five days later, and 60-year-old Diane Smith, who was last seen clinging to a tree in churning water.
Local Rural Fire Service volunteer Patrick Welsh spotted Ms Smith and her son Chris sitting outside their house and picked them up in a fire truck before 7.30am.
When he dropped Ms Smith with other evacuees on a bridge, she thanked him.
“Her last words to me were, ‘Thank you Patrick Welsh, I owe you a beer’,” Mr Welsh said.
The inquest has been told Ms Smith was later put in a ute to drive to an evacuation centre at the showground while the water was still low, but she never arrived.
Mr Welsh offered sympathy to the families of Mr Vugec and Ms Smith, who were sitting in court, over “what was an absolute day from hell for us as a town”.
The inquest continues before Deputy State Coroner David O’Neil.
AAP
