St Mark’s Picton, along with much of the town, has been hit hard by flooding over the weekend, with two metre high waters causing extensive damage within the church building and to other neighbouring properties.

The full extent of the damage, which occurred overnight, was seen this morning by the church’s rector the Rev Ben Boardman after he took his children to school.

“We came in this morning, and it was pretty full on,” says Mr Boardman. “You can see inside the church the high water marks at about 2 metres high, and the impact through the building was pretty plain as soon as we saw it. We were optimistic last night, particularly with the nearby levy bank built about twenty years ago for exactly this reason, but that just shows how quickly the waters were rising last night.”

Church members and locals spent Monday helping to clear out the immediate area. While the stone structure of the church itself is completely intact, much of the church’s contents including pews, sound equipment, carpet and historical registers and other church documents suffered severe damage.

“In addition to damage inside the church, a caravan that we’ve used for kid’s ministry for the last five or ten years was actually carried a couple hundred metres along the edge of the creek and is stuck up against a few trees,” says Mr Boardman. “There’s also been damage to the cemetery, with several headstones pushed over. We’ve had a big team of people here today, both from the congregation and the community helping out to clean pews, rip up carpet, and just try to make a dent in the mess.”

While the damage to the church is severe, many others around the church have also suffered from the impact of the flood waters, many to an even greater degree.

“One of the guys across the road from us, his house is complete devastation,” says Mr Boardman. “He managed to carry his animals up to his attic, but all his vehicles are wrecked, a lot of personal items have been damaged as well. There’s a lot of disaster around today. There are businesses uncertain of their future and insurance,  there are people who’ve lost personal belongings and who can’t stay in their homes. There are certainly many around here who are less fortunate than we are.”

While the damage is still fresh and there have been no firm plans made, Mr Boardman says he expects a team will be sent out by the insurance assessor to continue and complete the rest of the restoration effort from tomorrow. He says this may free the church to dedicate all of its resources to the community relief effort.

Photo and video: St Mark's Anglican Facebook page