Floodbanks: the legacy that saves Wyndham

Friday, 22 January 2021

Standing beside the floodbanks his father was instrumental in getting built 50 years ago, Lindsay Eunson is proud of his family's legacy.

In February 2020, Wyndham was one of the eastern Southland towns evacuated, rising and bursting rivers caused millions of dollars of damage and stock losses.

The floodbanks, built 50 years ago, held firm.

Lindsay, like his father Stuart Charles 'Digger” Eunson and grand-father Ted Eunson, is a plumber in Wyndham.

**READ MORE:

* Wyndham museum collection goes digital, building still closed

* Southland to get millions in Government funding for critical flood protection

* Coronavirus: Regional council applies for $18m for stopbank funding

**

It was not until his father died in 2018 that “all of a sudden” Lindsay became aware of the affect he had on the town.

Not just the flood banks, but Digger’s decades of public service on community boards and as a councillor, he said.

Fighting flooding is something most Wyndham residents can recall.

At 3.30am in 1978​, Digger Eunson announced wearily but triumphantly “we beat the bastard”.

The people of Wyndham had been sandbagging furiously to protect their town from the October flood and they won.

Digger wrote Handling Water: a Tricky Business, My life and Happenings as a Plumber, which was published in 2012.

In it, he says, the Mataura River had flooded Wyndham for many years, and they had no form of flood protection.

“The residents seemed quite happy to have their houses flooded every few years, and then restore their homes and hope next time was a few years away,” Digger says.

The book tells the story of the 1913 flood.

The railway embankment was holding back water, but it was breached and “a wall of water came into town, apparently floating two houses away”.

The embankment was rebuilt with two viaducts, but the railway was no longer being used and the embankment was removed, though bit-by-bit, because a farmer was concerned his neighbour could be washed away.

As land up-river was cleared and the run-off speeded up, flooding got more regular and it was decided to start a flood protection scheme, he says.

The first flood “put a bit of confidence into the town, and people started to build new houses for the first time in many years,” Digger wrote.

Under a subheading in the book “Recommended Dress: Thigh Gumboots”, Digger pokes fun at police.

He says officers came to a flood wearing dress shoes.

As the police rowed through town, four people from Wyndham, walking in gumboots, lifted the boat every time it grounded.

“That got up my nose,” Digger says.

When Lindsay received the message Wyndham was to be evacuated in February 2020, he was in Gore as a civil defence radio operator.

After the water receded, Lindsay remembered not much was said about his dad’s mark on the town.

“There’s been so many changes in town that we don't have those old people around any more, those old ones who knew the story.”

But without Digger, “we would have been flooded eight times since 1968 … that [flood bank] was his way of paying back the townsfolk.”

The north and south banks run about 4.8 kilometres long, standing between 1.2 to 3 metres high.

They guard the town from the Mataura River to the north, west and south and its tributary, the Mimihau Stream, to the nor-nor-east.

Digger did not build the floodbanks alone, and in his book he thanked fellow public servants Des Popham and Neil Farrell for freeing up funding.

The Wyndham floodbanks were built in the early 1970s and heightened after the 1978 flooding.

In July 1968 the Wyndham Town Council requested flood protection from the Southland Catchment Board and a better warning system.

Michele Poole's 1990 book While Water Flows… A History of the Southland Catchment Board, details the work was estimated at $13,516 with a 2:1 subsidy.

By the 1978 flood, the flood banks were in place and despite a couple of small issues, the people of Wyndham laid sandbags and kept the town mostly dry.

However, a Mataura River Action Committee was formed 1980.

In Poole's book it says Digger said that the action committee was a reflection of “misunderstanding and dissatisfaction” leading to concern from lower Mataura catchment farmers that not enough work would be done to counter the effects of upstream stop banking and channel clearance.

At that stage, Digger was serving as chairman on the Wyndham Town Board.

He was a Southland District councillor from 1989 to 2001.

Digger's obituary says “flood protection, decent storm water and sewerage projects were the hallmarks of his diligent half-century in local government roles”.

The 1968 flood really hurt the town, but it was the last time it was underwater.

Lindsay, who was a child at the time, anddoesn’t remember much of the 1968 flood, but he does remember his father talking about carloads of people, cut off from their homes and heartbroken and not allowed to check the damage to their houses.

“And I think that’s probably the reason why he was always reluctant to evacuate the town… people like to see what’s happening to their house,” he said.

The floodbanks have been heightened during the years, and will be further strengthened with funds from the Government’s shovel-ready scheme.

Work will come from a share of $25m, with the upgrades deemed critical after the February 2020 floods.

In an article Digger wrote for The Southland Times in 1998, he says “there were times when you would be convinced Wyndham had been built in a river-bed”.

When a flood was coming, they would gather at the town clerk’s office, “usually a bottle of whisky was produced to induce ‘fortitude’ and we went to the low areas to lift furniture, bedding, fridges, freezers and floor coverings”, Digger wrote.

“As each house was finished we moved on to the neighbour. What awful nights these were.”

“In hindsight, what a tough breed of people we had. No tears, no emotion, in fact they seemed more concerned about neighbours or friends than themselves.”

As the value of homes increased, so did the cost of flood damage, and the then town council made inquiries for a stop-banking scheme, Digger wrote.

“Our first scheme cost $32,000, and we felt safe at last, but then we started having 50-year floods then 100-year floods and our banks were not high enough, so we have increased the height twice since the original venture and so far we have been safe. I am sure we all know in the back of our minds that one day . . .” he wrote.

Emergency Management Southland acting manager Craig Sinclair said the floodbanks saved the people of Wyndham from a lot of heartache.

Sinclair was a police officer in Gore and Mataura and relieved at Wyndham early in his police career.

He knew Digger well, describing him as a valuable community asset in advocating for sewerage, drainage and all other water issues.

Digger would have advocated for the floodbanks from the day of the 1968 floods, Sinclair said.

Sinclair did not even want to guess how many millions of dollars the floodbanks had saved.

Developing catchments and floodbanks in Southland have historically involved many layers of local government, communities and hundreds of people have been involved in making them a reality.

Lindsay, on reflection, believes his father was so dedicated to his town that his years of service was a way to pay them back.

“I think he realised it was the townsfolk that provided for him and his family,” Lindsay said.

Standing in his workshop, Lindsay is sentimental as he flicks through his father's book and recalls how the floodbanks came about and how the people of the town rallied together to get them done.

It's a legacy that continues to shelter the people of Wyndham, hopefully for decades to come.