Bega Pioneers' Museum has countless files on people and places. One is the history of Bega floods, 1851-1978, written by Bernice E Smith.
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AS so often happens, after heavy flooding in February and March 1873, another flood came that winter. Tarraganda Crossing was impassable so a punt was brought into service until the bridge was finally completed, after being partly destroyed on three occasions.
In 1874 river crossings were extremely dangerous, as there was another big flood when a leading townsman and auctioneer, Mr Fred Berne, was drowned. He had conducted a sale at Dundindi, and on his return tried to swim his horse over the river at Kanoona but both were swept away. Mr. Berne was carrying a considerable amount of money, the proceeds of the sale. His body was never recovered although one of his boots was found some months later. Mr. Berne was the father of Miss Dagmar Berne, Australia’s first woman graduate in medicine, in whose honour her mother founded a scholarship awarded each year to a woman student of medicine at Sydney University.
Two farmers, Messrs Harkness and McGuire, were also drowned in this flood while trying to get their cattle to higher ground.
In February, 1878, floods caused damage estimated at £30,000, while later that year another flood left a considerable amount of water and sand on the flats so it was many months before they could be made productive again although drainage work was carried out with scoops and horses.
In the 1880s floods were not so severe, but bushfires caused terrible damage, so that when 1890–1891 came in wet, it was a welcome change to the drought conditions. However, rain fell heavily in June of 1891, the resulting flood causing damage to roads and new bridges – especially those below the solid cutting on Brown Mountain recently built by Mr John Guthrie of Bemboka.
1893 was another flood year. Although rainfall registrations were not high in Bega, rain back in the mountains caused steep rises in all rivers, the Bega and Brogo Rivers meeting in one great sheet of water, covering the North Bega flats almost as high as in the flood of 1851. Many of the district’s bridges were damaged, some under construction losing timbers and other materials.
One of the highest floods ever recorded was in February, 1898, when, after six days of almost continuous rain, amounting to 28 inches in all, the whole district was covered with flood waters. The water extended from Kirkland’s Flour Mill, now part of the Bega Showground, to Tarraganda Lane, covering bridges, many barns and some homes.