00:00The level of water that was in our outer lounge and I'm keeping the cupboard because I want
00:07to be reminded that this is how deep it was.
00:10When flood water rose into Rumberee on the Victoria NSW border in October 2022, Tuesday
00:16Brow found herself stranded for three months.
00:19It's nearly two years and we're still cleaning up, we're still finding things that have floated
00:24in and floated out.
00:26But a big problem requires a big solution and Ms Brow has gone to extreme lengths to
00:32protect her home.
00:34She's built a high-tech barrier that's used by militaries all around the world.
00:39The lightweight barrier system consists of cells made of a highly durable geotextile
00:43fabric.
00:45The company that supplies it says it's easier to assemble than it is to fill thousands of
00:49sandbags and it thinks this is the first time a resident has imported it.
00:54I'm the first person, private person, that has bought them.
00:59Normally they're sold via government, to government departments.
01:05Helen Williams remembers the huge community effort that went into building to Rumberee's
01:09flood levy two years ago.
01:11More than 100 residents worked tirelessly over three weeks with a dozen excavators,
01:17a dozen trucks and a lot of very skilled locals.
01:21As a community we knew that the cavalry wouldn't be coming for us because they hadn't for the
01:25last 50 years.
01:27Here in Toorumbere residents are used to taking measures into their own hands.
01:31They're now calling on all levels of government to listen to them and come up with better
01:35ways to protect their communities.
01:38Give us some surety that in the future that there's a particular flood level in Echuca
01:43which is about two days of water away from us.
01:46When it hits that level that they action things that we need put in place.
01:50A community that says it's being forced to look after itself.
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