This wasn’t the first time Banyule had been struck by flash flooding. Within the span of 12 years, three major floods had tested the community: in 2004, 2011 and then 2016.

The intensity of the 2016 flood was estimated to be a 1-in-400-year event, meaning it truly was a freak storm. It exceeded the capacity of drainage networks, sending floodwaters rushing across roads and into homes in a flash.

Understanding the impacts

Salt Creek, usually a quiet stream winding through Rosanna and Macleod, surged into a raging torrent. Although Melbourne Water had increased local drainage capacity after severe floods in the 1970s and 80s and built a retarding basin at Harry Pottage Reserve, this couldn’t hold back the sheer force of this storm.

Roads disappeared beneath floodwaters, which also inundated homes and businesses.

• Lower Plenty Road was completely cut off
• Macleod Tennis Club, no stranger to flooding, was extensively damaged once more
• Council buildings along Turnham Avenue saw cars bobbing helplessly in the water, unable to be moved.

Fences and houses interrupted the flow of water, adding to the chaos. Floodwaters were forced into unexpected areas, intensifying the damage.

“You could hear the roar of the water as it smashed through everything in its path,” a witness recalled.

For one Rosanna family, the flood brought back painful memories. Years earlier they had lost their puppy to rushing floodwaters. As torrents of water tore through their home again, they scrambled to save their replacement pet from the same fate, wading through four feet of floodwater.

“It was like a tsunami,” they recalled. “It didn’t trickle in – it smashed through the front windows. We were just watching the torrential rain out the window, and then suddenly a wave of water came out of nowhere.”