Days before, there’d been warnings that the water was coming, but not of the volume that arrived and threatened Eddie's home on Campaspe Esplanade.
Despite being told it was illegal to place sandbags on the road, Eddie sprung into action as the water became too close for comfort.
“It came up so quickly,” he said.
“If more water had come down, I don’t know what we would have done.”
Eddie and his neighbours laid a barrier of sandbags piled three high on the road in front of the houses and at its peak the water reached the top of the second row.
It was the second flood Eddie experienced at his home on Campaspe Esplanade.
“We had the flood here in 1974 when we first moved in,” he said.
“This road (Campaspe Esplanade) wasn’t bitumen and it acted as a barrier which worked out well.
“But we got water in through the back.”
Eddie brought his knowledge of the “knack” of laying sandbags, taught to him by Max McKee in ’74, to ensure no would water get through when the river rose again in 2011.
“We felt we were quite capable and all the neighbours got into it,” Eddie said.
“We even had a few young guys, who had a few drinks in them, come down late at night to help.”
Eddie and his neighbours were understandably worried about their homes, and in the end he said the sandbags they spent hours piling up “undoubtedly” saved their houses.
“We were pretty exhausted,” he said.
When then Prime Minister Julia Gillard came by, Eddie was roped in by his neighbours to meet her, which ended up in a photo in the Riv.
“I felt she made sufficient time to come and meet the people and made herself available to the community,” Eddie said.
“She did a good job and showed interest.”
Even after two floods, Eddie and his wife Lynette still live on Campaspe Esplanade, and have no plans to leave.
“It doesn’t matter where you are; you’re going to have bushfires, floods, drought, whatever it is,” he said.
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