Zoe Moffatt
As flood waters rushed through the Macedon Ranges last year, Darraweit Guim was the town hit hardest.
One year on, Darraweit Guim fire brigade captain Mark Spedding said news of flooding throughout the state and the upcoming bushfire season is increasing nerves in the community.
“It still gives you a bit of a ‘oo ah,’ every time it rains,” he said. “The news last week of flooding up north and east has got the locals a bit nervous.
“There’s three people still working like mad on [fixing] their homes, pulling 14 hour days restoring what happened.
“There’s two houses which, other than the immediate work of stripping out plaster, they’re still sitting there, they haven’t been touched.”
When talking about the 2023-24 summer, Mr Spedding said being at the centre of a disaster can be overwhelming and relentless.
“If you’re at the centre of a big big fire, it’s more than one person can deal with,” he said.
“It’s just knowing that things are going to happen, and it might get really busy. If you’re the focus of attention, it’s going to be overwhelming, there’s no other word for it.
“If it’s a local big fire with lots of follow up fires… it’s a fairly relentless schedule you can be working on it for weeks.”
With parts of the town, such as the school, inundated Mr Spedding said he felt the flood brought the community together.
“[There is] a new community group [called CommUnity], instigated and assisted by council, which is planning for community resilience and helping with the recovery when bad shit happens.
“[The school] was back on school grounds in temporary buildings before the end of last year, and that meant a lot to the community.
“For an institution like the school to go away, it left a big hole in the town and seeing them thriving down there with all the new buildings [is great].
“Just crossing fingers it doesn’t get soggy again.”
