General News
3 March, 2026
A Mum's World: Downpour
Well, that was a bit of a dramatic weekend, wasn’t it?
The Iranian people are finally facing freedom while we in the Wimmera are shut in by the damp.
I was in Melbourne with my girls Friday night, but my VIC Emergency App was going off non-stop; thunderstorm warnings, fires, trees down and flash flooding – I felt very irresponsible staying away from home.
I spent the evening watching Facebook footage of locals being pelted by hailstones, working to stop rain coming in the front door and water flowing across topsoil trying to take it all away.
Driving back from Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, I was surprised to only meet my first puddles on the outskirts of Horsham.
At our place, the drain was full, the driveway flooded and the gauge reading 26mm.
Phew, no branches down or water damage.
The dogs were happy to see me, the chooks met me with eggs and there was only one dead frog in the pool filter.
Then Saturday evening, the real rain started and it hammered down all night. I couldn’t even hear the telly with the volume way up high.
I love rain on a tin roof, and I enjoyed a whole night of it.
My leaky roof in the lounge was a little iffy, but it felt like the first real autumn rain in years.
By Sunday morning, the lawn was saturated or under water and there were eight frogs kicking around in the pool filter – I transported them to the dam which had filled significantly as had the rain gauge with 40mm.
Sunday seemed just an innocent damp day, but the Vic Emergency App told a different story – very much a ‘batten down the hatches’ this is going to get serious message with warnings of up to 100mm of rain arriving quickly in the approaching hours.
Meanwhile, in the city, the girls were still reporting balmy summer weather.
Tiani’s ‘O’ Week activities were blessed with fine weather as she attended an ‘Australian Icon’ dress-up party as Kylie Minogue one night and her own sister’s backyard birthday party the next.
A shower of rain started Sunday arvo, finally finding them with a dusting of the wet stuff.
Floods are by nature very sudden and fast moving.
Until you have seen the space around you flooded, you just cannot predict what the water will move out of it’s way to get where it wants to go.
You can’t live a life totally protected from flooding any more than you can cut down all the trees because a limb might come loose in the wind.
Preparing to be physically safe in your home is almost as tricky as trying to stay safe in your own body – there’s only so much preparation you can make – and no amount of sand bagging can hold back the flood of physical disaster when it strikes.
You never know which way it’s going to go.
As the sun rose on Monday, we had 32mm in the gauge.
Soaked.