AS I DRIVE into the small Victorian riverside town of Rochester, a banner tied to a metal fence greets me on the main road. The banner is white and the text is written in heavy black lettering, like a desperate plea for help: Can’t do this again – Mitigate. It’s a warm November morning and the sky is a picturesque blue without a cloud in sight. It’s hard to imagine what happened here over a year ago, the ‘this’ the sign refers to. But for the locals, it’s hard to forget.  

Karen Galliker is a calm woman who greets me with a smile when I pull up to the caravan park she now calls home. There are around twelve caravans and campers sprawled across the grounds up to the riverbank; the sites fill up with travelling Melbournians during the school holidays but are usually vacant this time of year. Everyone staying here at the moment is like Karen and her husband: locals displaced by the floods.