ONE OF THE BIG FLOODS ARRIVES
A flood peak of 13.90 metres is predicted to hit Bourke ‘around Wednesday 23 November with major flooding’, reminding old timers of the huge floods of the 1970’s.
The 2022 flood at Bourke is a massive amount of water breaking out of the banks and surrounding the town. The predicted peak is just 20-30 centimetres lower than the floods of 1974 and 1976 (see table).
And those two events were not the biggest floods since the early white settlers stumbled over the Baaka River and founded the town of Bourke.
The biggest recorded floods since European settlement were in 1864 (14.52m) and 1890 (14.40m), and both floods inundated the struggling, unprepared town of Bourke.
A plaque recording the height of the 1890 flood is located at the front of the Bourke Post Office building, and many photos of the water in town are still available.
The 1890 flood was the last flood to inundate the town, as levee banks were substantially improved for flood protection.
Several big floods arrived in the 1950’s – 13.92m in 1950, 12.42m in 1955 and 13.75m in 1956.
But in the1970’s Bourke experienced two major “one in a hundred year” floods – one in 1974 at 14.09 metres and a bigger flood two years later in 1976 – peaking at 14.17 metres. These two monster floods followed another serious flood of 13.54m in 1971.
The two big 1970’s floods threatened to breach the levee and were only kept out by a serious community effort.
During the height of those two floods, Bourke residents were rostered to patrol levee banks day and night, to fill sandbags out at the Bourke Golf Course, and to build up the levee banks as the flood waters rose.
Since the 1970’s there have been floods in 1983 (13.25m), 1984 (12.56m), 1988 (12.57m) 1990 (12.99m) and 1998 (13.79).
And in the new millennium, the big droughts have not prevented more regular floods – with flood peaks at Bourke of 12.28m in 2001, 10.78m in 2010, 12.56m in 2011, a big one in 2012 of 13.78m and a minor flood of 10.26m in 2016.
Barwon-Darling Water spokesman Ian Cole said that floods are just as regular in the Darling River Basin as droughts.
“In relation to this 2022 major flood, many people having been saying that floods on the Barwon-Darling are becoming less regular
“But in fact, we have had seven floods at Bourke in the last twenty years, including a ‘top ten’ flood in 2012 which threatened some houses in the lower lying areas at North Bourke.
“This 2023 flood predicted ‘around 13.90 metres’ could challenge the 1950 flood which reached 13.92 metres, possibly making it the top three flood in living memory, and one of the top five floods on record at Bourke.
“That is a serious flood – but goes nowhere near threatening the Bourke levee which is built to a height of 15.5 metres,” Mr Cole said.
The Barwon River at Brewarrina, upstream of Bourke, appeared to have peaked at 10.17 metres on Monday with a total flow around Bre township of 250,000 megalitres per day (about half the capacity of Sydney Harbour in one day!).
Downstream, Major flooding is also occurring at Louth and Tilpa. The Darling at Louth may reach 13.6m in late November and the Darling at Tilpa may reach 13.1m in late November or early December.
Regardless, all communities along the Barwon-Darling are expected to see minor to major flooding for much of November and December.
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