The town losing its golden years to encroaching water

Were it not for the catastrophic flood of 2022 and its exhausting aftermath, Brian Mulcahy might still be with us. But he was never the same after the Campaspe River, distended from days of relentless rain, surged over its banks and engulfed the north Victorian town of Rochester with fast-flowing murky water.

It was the most severe flood in Rochester’s recorded history, inundating the house Brian shared with his wife Glenys. I remember that day clearly because I was in their house with them when it went under.

I found Brian in his driveway mounting a spirited defence of his home of more than 50 years from behind a sandbag wall, pumping water from his yard into the street where it was already knee-high.

It was late morning and the rain had stopped, but the floodwater kept rising. Brian could so easily have told me to scram. Instead, he did the opposite. Brian and Glenys invited me and Age photographer Justin McManus to spend the afternoon with them, documenting their fight to save the family home in their hour of profound emotional strain.

They quickly realised pumping water was a losing battle, so they went inside the house to protect their belongings. Justin and I helped lift their furniture, appliances and audio equipment above the floor as water bubbled up from the toilet and rose from every direction.

By early evening, they had to evacuate. The floodwater reached 25 centimetres above floor level in their home. While waiting for insurance assessments and then repairs, the couple lived in a caravan on their property. Then they moved to temporary accommodation in Moama, about 20 minutes from Rochester, and stayed there for 12 months.

But a few days after the flood, Glenys says, it became obvious Brian was not coping. Then one day he just gave out.

“He was down in the caravan and he couldn’t sleep, and one morning he got up and he collapsed,” Glenys recalls.

She rang Triple 0, but when the paramedics arrived they told her Brian had not suffered a heart attack or a stroke. Still, they transported him to hospital in Echuca, where he stayed a couple of days.

I kept touch with Glenys, who would update me on their recovery. She told me Brian’s mental health deteriorated after returning from hospital and he was taken to a mental health facility in Bendigo. He spent five months there. Then the doctors delivered some distressing news.

“They suggested we have a scan on his brain,” Glenys says. “And that’s when they found out he had dementia.”

Before the flood, Glenys had not noticed any signs of cognitive decline in her husband. She believes the flood triggered the condition. When the couple returned to their refurbished home in Rochester, Brian lost all motivation for pastimes that had once brought him joy: watching motorsport and his beloved Collingwood.

“He just didn’t want to go out, and was just happy to stay at home. He wasn’t interested in anything like watching footy and car races.”

About a month ago, Glenys called to let me know Brian had died. His death came three weeks short of his 82nd birthday.

Brian pulled more than a decent crowd to his funeral in early March at Rochester Cemetery. The speeches recalled him as a decent, sociable and hardworking family man. He frequently welcomed his two sons’ friends into his home – a theme I would hear repeatedly later. There were painful memories too, most notably the death of Glenys and Brian’s oldest son Michael in a road accident in 1985 when he was just a teenager.

After the funeral I chatted with the locals who gathered at the Rochester Football Netball Club. There was a common theme in conversations: multiple people said a parent or someone close to them had suffered significant cognitive decline or was diagnosed with dementia after the floods. They all attributed these conditions to the natural disaster.

These observations were anecdotal. But they were numerous. And research suggests they may have some scientific basis. A study led by researchers from Monash University and China drew a clear link between flooding and increased dementia risk. The research found flooding was linked to two types of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

The study defined dementia as a syndrome of cognitive and functional decline and a major cause of disability for older adults. Analysing data from the UK Biobank, which includes a sample size of 500,000 people, the researchers found increased dementia risk was highest in the year of flooding and then gradually decreased over six years.

Psychological trauma, stress and depression are factors that may explain the connection between disasters and cognitive decline, the research found. Destroyed houses, social isolation and living in unfamiliar environments might also contribute to increased risk.

The research, published in Nature last year, cited a separate study in Japan that reported an increase in prescriptions of anti-dementia drugs after a flood. The prognosis more broadly is hardly encouraging: “Based on our research findings, it is expected that the case of flood-related dementia will increase in the future.”

Anybody can develop dementia, but it is most common among people aged 65 and older. The 2021 Census showed Rochester had a median age of 53, compared to the statewide median of 38. So the town’s older demographic may leave it more susceptible to dementia.

But for many locals, the ageing population fails to adequately explain the rapid decline they noticed among many of their own.

Before the flood, Justin Cleary’s mother Christina was living independently in a small but neat unit near the town’s centre. She was active and social. She took long walks with her dog to visit family. Book club with friends. Bowls.

Cleary says, although his mother was ageing and had underlying health issues, her quality of life was generally decent before the flood. But he says many other older people in Rochester experienced similar problems to his mother, including the lady who lived next door to Christina.

“She moved from there and never returned to her unit. My mum came back to her unit briefly and couldn’t cope,” Cleary says.

Christina died in March last year aged 86. When older people die, Cleary says, the community loses the grandparents’ generation who provide care and emotional support for the grandchildren. They are volunteers in community groups. And in a small town every financial contribution is important – even if it is just senior citizens spending part of their pension at local shops.

“Those golden years are to be cherished. It’s sad that so many people have experienced the accelerated loss of those years.”

Cleary says an intangible legacy is lost with the premature passing of the older generation: the living connection to community folklore and local traditions.

He has no doubt some Rochester residents would still be enjoying their retirement years if their lives had not been upended in 2022.

“I reckon Brian Mulcahy would probably still just be an active part of this community if it wasn’t for that event,” he says. “I just don’t think it gets recognised.”

Rochester’s dementia rate reached 1.27 per cent in the 2021 Census, compared to a statewide average of 0.71 per cent, putting it among the highest locations for the condition in regional Victoria. That census was taken a decade after the previous severe flood in 2011.

However, Rochester’s dementia rate was well below the top 10 locations across Victoria even though its demographic skewed older. The next census will be conducted this year, so it remains to be determined whether the 2022 flood will dramatically increase dementia diagnoses in the census data.

Geriatrician Kate Gregorevic urges caution in drawing a direct connection between flooding and dementia. She believes floods might expose the early but pre-existing symptoms of dementia in an individual.

“Your brain has to work harder,” she says. “If someone has been living with dementia but living well, [floods] can unmask the deficits.”

Rochester’s Community House manager Amanda Logie has noticed many older people struggling in her community since October 2022.

“We have seen quite a number of people who have become unwell,” she says. “Whether it be dementia or having to go into aged care earlier than what you would think they would go.”

Her community centre runs the Men’s Shed, and she believes there is a missing cohort of retirees – people who should have been tinkering with woodwork and other activities the centre provides. She suspects stress associated with insurance claims and dealing with the flood’s aftermath exacerbated cognitive decline for many older Rochester residents.

“That Men’s Shed moment has passed because they’ve gone into care, so they never had that opportunity to actually enjoy their retirement years.”

Logie says the 2022 flood hit the town’s older community much harder than the 2011 flood. Then, 250 houses were flooded above floor level, compared to about 1000 in 2022. That meant far fewer residents had the capacity to help their neighbours.

Darshini Ayton, head of Monash University’s Ageing and Health Services team, believes dementia remains undiagnosed among many people in the broader community and its symptoms are often mistaken for normal ageing. She says the stress caused by waiting for impending floods, the event itself and the aftermath created long-term stress for people whose lives were devastated by the natural disasters.

Increased levels of cortisol, known as the stress hormone, and inflammation in the circulatory system are among the common physical responses to a traumatic event. These physiological factors and social dislocation resulting from displacement put flood survivors at higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia, Ayton says.

“When your body is stressed regularly, that can lead to chronic disease,” she says.

Survivors diagnosed with cognitive decline or dementia soon after a flood might have already been susceptible, Ayton adds, but floods are likely to accelerate the decline. The healthy lifestyle factors that can lower dementia risk – including a healthy diet, exercise and sufficient sleep – are typically disrupted after a flood.

Ayton wants authorities to be more aware of the relationship between floods and increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia when providing support before and after natural disasters. That might include embedding personnel trained in cognitive decline or impairment in crisis response teams and evacuation centres.

“Nobody is talking about it enough,” Ayton says. “We could slow, prevent or decrease the chances of this happening if we set up systems to deal with it from the start.”

Plenty of people were talking about the connection between cognitive decline and the 2022 flood at the Rochester Tigers Football Netball Club after Brian Mulcahy’s funeral. But there were many happy memories too.

Friends chuckled at Brian’s cheeky antics in his youth. I thought about how great it would have been to know him like that – the funny man with a passion for racing cars and AFL.

Later, Glenys reminisced with me about the wonderful decades they spent together – the joys of raising their children, adventures in their caravan and friends they made on the road.

“I do think the memories keep you going,” she said.

It’s just that she had expected those experiences to go on for a little longer.

“We’ve always had a really good life, and I didn’t think our old age would end up like it did, with Brian getting dementia.”

Thankfully, I too glimpsed another perspective of Brian Mulcahy. I saw a determined fighter who pitted every ounce of strength against a flood so powerful it overwhelmed his town’s defences.

And I experienced the quiet generosity of the man who welcomed me into his home just as he had so many others, even at a moment of despair.

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