The Great flood of December 1934

December 1, 1934 was when the largest flood ever to hit Koo-Wee-Rup and surrounding districts  occured.  In October of that year, Koo Wee Rup received over twice its average rain fall. November also had well above average rainfall and heavy rain fell on December 1 across the State. This rainfall caused a flood of over 100,000 megalitres or 40,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second) per day. This was only an estimate because all the gauges were washed away. The entire Swamp was inundated; water was over 6 feet (2 metres) deep in the town of Koo Wee Rup, exacerbated by the fact that the railway embankment held the water in the town; my grandparents house at Cora Lynn had 3½ feet of water through it and according to family legend they spent three days in the roof with a nine, five, three year old and my father who was one at the time. This flood also affected other parts of the State, including Melbourne and over a thousand people were left homeless in Victoria. 

Rossiter Road., Koo Wee Rup. The house, Mallow, was built, c. 1916,  by John Colvin for his daughter Margaret on her marriage to Les O'Riordan. It is now the home of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society. 

Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society photo

Here are two eye-witness accounts of the flood.

This account is from More Mickle memories of Koo Wee Rup* by David Mickle.

The average flood in the Koo Wee Rup township had been up to two feet. The State Savings Bank Building Department specified that floor levels in this locality must be 30 inches above the ground.
We had the highest single level house in town and consequently on December 1, 1934 about 8.00am we invited Wally Bethune, his wife and two children to come from their ground level home opposite to our “unsinkable three footer”. Mr Graham and child came to help us but very soon we were sinking too. I waded to a wood shed for a ladder to put through the man-hole in the bathroom ceiling and very soon the Bethunes, Grahams and Mickles – total eleven- were on blankets in the ceiling. The flood would have been four  feet deep outside then and rising fast. The depth was five feet six inches when apparently it managed to cross the railway embankment and stopped rising. This embankment had caused the flood to back up with disastrous results. Here we stayed like many others on and in roofs until boats arrived. From these vantage points we watched cows, sheep , pigs and poultry intermixed with oil drums and trees go by... That afternoon Pomp Colvin came with his boat and took Mr Graham and girl to their house. Nine of us were taken to the Railway Crossing at 10.30am the next day, Sunday, by boat. On the Monday, men only, were allowed back into the town to organise the cleaning up.

This account is from Patsy Adam Smith from her book Hear the train blow**. Her mother was Station Mistress and Post Mistress at Monomeith railway station at this time and her father was a fettler.

At home we were perfectly safe because of the house being off the ground up on the platform. On the second day Mum heard on the radio that homeless people were being brought into the Railway station at Koo Wee Rup. She walked in to help. Where she walked on the five-foot the swirling waters lapped over her shoes, the ballast had been swept away and the sleepers were held up only because they were fastened to the rails. The whole line in parts was swinging…..Dad and other fettlers brought in scores of people who had been cut off on high ground or in the ceilings of their homes. The water had run over the land so suddenly that most people were taken unawares. The Bush Nursing Hospital was caught this way. The fettlers cut through the roof of that building to take out the patients…… Mum, helping patients out of the boat when it reached Koo Wee Rup station found Dad’s coat around an old lady who had only a thin nightdress beneath it

David Roberts in From Swampland to Farmland*** pays tribute to the early pioneers on the Swamp and it is a fitting tribute to our parents and grandparents.

It is interesting to note that the three large floods of 1924, 1934 and 1937, all within a thirteen year time span contributed to the development of a “breed” of people –people who had faced floods and continued to work their land in the belief that they could be beaten and that the good years would outweigh the bad. A certain resilience and tight knit community spirit had grown amongst the people, some of whom were children or grandchildren of the original drain diggers, and like their predecessors they weren’t going to be beaten by the Koo Wee Rup Swamp.

References :
*More Mickle Memories of Koo Wee Rup by David Mickle (The Author, 1987)
**Hear the train blow by Patsy Adam-Smith (Nelson,  1981)
**From Swampland to Farmland: a history of the Koo Wee Rup Flood Protection District by David Roberts. (Rural Water Commission, 1985)