A Rochester holiday park was lucky to have cash in the bank when the 2022 floods came, the chair of its management committee says as a flood inquiry rolls into the central Victorian town.
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"If we had not had the money we would have been in trouble," chair of the Rochester Recreation Reserve committee Brendan Martin said.
His group owns the Rochester Riverside Holiday Park, which was inundated with a metre of water in the spring floods, 12 years after a similar disaster rolled through the area.
The park still needed extra help to recover but was able to navigate red tape on loans and grants, Mr Martin said.
Not all Victorian caravan and holiday parks have been as lucky.
Pressures mount on providers
Seventy per cent of caravan parks copped asset and property damage when water burst banks across the state, the Victorian Caravan Parks Association has told a parliamentary inquiry into the floods.
"We understand that all bar one council-owned businesses were, and remain, unable to insure against property damage or business interruption arising from flood events," they said in a submission.
Victoria's caravan parks have been faced with $45 million in repair bills and $38 million in lost accommodation revenue, the association said.
Many needed even more support to get back to make business viable, it warned.
"Unfortunately, combined with the pressures of increased costs of business, insurance market failure, skills shortages and changing government legislation the closure of some flood-impacted caravan parks remains a very real threat," the association told the inquiry.
Inquiry rolling into Rochester, Echuca
The inquiry itself is travelling through Victoria with a stopover in Rochester today (August 23, 2023) to hear from people at the centre of recovery efforts before heading to Echuca on August 24.
Among those expected to have their say in Rochester are members of the town's recovery committee and other groups dealing with the disaster and its aftermath.
Concerns about Lake Eppalock are also likely to be raised.
Rochester is downstream of the lake.
Many members of the community want assurances water levels will be kept low enough that the lake could absorb any heavy spring rains in 2023.
Mr Martin from the caravan park's committee was philosophical when asked about potential lessons the inquiry might take.
"What do you do? It was a spectacular event of Mother Nature. We've rebuilt, we've taken floods into account in terms of heights, so its a matter of building back better, to some degree," he said.
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Mr Martin encouraged holiday makers from Bendigo and surrounds to come out, spend some money in Rochester and enjoy everything the region had to offer.
"We are close enough to Echuca that you can camp here quite reasonably and catch the train up, go to some wineries," he said.
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Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
