It was 10.30am on October 13, 2022, and the banks of the Goulburn were not yet broken.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
It would be more than 12 hours until any evacuation orders were issued for Seymour. Yet as water rose from the storm water drains, Wallis St shopkeepers prepared themselves, with the little time they had, to be inundated with water.
At 9.30am on that fateful Thursday, Body Fit Training owner Adam Griffiths called Mitchell Shire Council and Victoria Police to notify them of the storm water drain overflow flooding the street.
Just 45 minutes later, Wallis St was blocked off to traffic.
To an outsider, storm water inundation or floodwater damage may seem like semantics, leaving behind equally devastating carnage.
But for these Wallis St businesses, verifying the damage they first endured came from storm water is pivotal to their insurance claims.
For many, insurers will only recognise the damage as flooding from the Goulburn River, for which these businesses are not insured.
A distinction between the storm water inundation and Goulburn River flooding is the time between each event, according to business owners on the street.
The Stihl Shop, BFT Seymour and Joyce Automotive on Wallis St had water up to their knees by 5.30pm on Thursday, October 13.
Yet no flood evacuation order was given until the early hours of Friday, October 14.
Stihl Shop owner Courtney Caroll said her shop was filled with water by 5.30pm on the Thursday, but the water from the Goulburn River did not reach the shop until the early hours of Friday morning.
“It was storm water that inundated us before we got hit by the Goulburn River. It came from the drains initially, not the river,” she said
“Honest to God, the guttering system around here is terrible … that was a major issue for us.”
Without prior warning of a flooding event and without an insurance payout, Ms Caroll’s business has been left to foot the bill for the repairs of customers’ property and the high value floor stock that was in the store at the time of the floods.
Next door, Mr Griffiths has the same problem with his insurance company.
Eager to move on from the devastating event, he is now facing a drawn-out legal battle.
“I’m still fighting my insurance (company). I will be taking them to litigation. Mine was from inundation from the drains, not from the river,” he said.
Yet he still considers himself one of the lucky ones — as a franchisee, he has the backing of a larger business to help him through the process.
He does not know how smaller businesses are navigating the minefield that insurance on Wallis St has become.
One such small business is Joyce Automotive, run by Harrold Joyce for the past 15 years.
“It was storm water that went through our places and because the shire hasn’t acknowledged that, none of us can get our storm water insurances through,” Mr Joyce said.
“We are denied support because the shire won’t admit culpability.”
Collectively, the business owners are calling for a detailed explanation of how Wallis St flooded, for insurance purposes.
As the body responsible for the town’s storm water drainage system, flood-affected individuals are now looking to council for answers.
In a statement provided to The Telegraph, Mitchell Shire Council chief executive officer Brett Luxford said Wallis St was closed during the flood event, but he maintained that council could not confirm where the water had come from.
“Unfortunately, council does not have evidence to confirm the origin of the water that impacted Wallis St,” Mr Luxford said.
State Member for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland hopes the input of an objective hydrologist through the statewide flood enquiry will provide greater clarity as to the water distribution during the flooding event.
“At the moment we have insurance companies coming in with their own hydrologists and there is really inconsistent approvals of insurance claims,” Ms Cleeland said.
The water may have receded and the doors have reopened, but the battle still wages on as local business owners fight for their livelihoods against insurance companies.