Karen’s lost the lot

By Bridget Cook
Karen Speirs was one of about 30 people evacuated from Willow Lodge Village in Bangholme, a mobile home village, on Saturday and relocated to temporary housing.
About 10 homes in the village suffered extensive damage, with their carpets having to be ripped up and many belongings destroyed.
The local police and Greater Dandenong Council, along with the assistance of the village’s two caretakers, co-ordinated the evacuation late Saturday afternoon as a precautionary measure.
The village staff have now begun to help with the clean-up, with a group of labourers assisting the residents to rip up their carpet and get on with the recovery process.
Ms Speirs said she was in disbelief when she woke on Saturday morning to find water had already started seeping into her mobile home.
“I’m in the lowest part of the park so the water rose so fast,” she said.
“I went into panic mode and frantically just started grabbing stuff and putting things up off the ground. But being in a mobile home, there’s only so much room to do that. I felt so helpless.”
Ms Speirs said the water got to about thigh height across the day and most belongings in her home were lost.
“It’s the sentimental things that I’ve lost that hurt me the most,” she said.
“There were 30 to 40-year-old photos of my children just floating past me.
“My life was just floating before my eyes.”
But while Ms Speirs is devastated about the loss of most of her possessions, it was the loss of her birds that hit home the hardest.
“I had to stand there and listen to them drowning,” she said. “I couldn’t get to the aviaries to even set them free.
One parrot and one quail survived, but Ms Speirs said they had been causing her more heartache as they were constantly calling out for their partners.
She urged anyone who had a female parrot or quail they could give her, to contact 0435 034 774.
Ms Speirs said she was grateful for the people around her.
“Without the great support from Willow Lodge, some of my neighbours and family, I wouldn’t have been able to get through.”
Ms Speirs said she now had to wait for her insurance company to get back to her to see if she was covered before she could properly move on.
She expected it would take months before she could fully recover from the disaster.