Sandbag external entry points

 

Sandbag external entry points including garage door

To prevent water affecting your property during the flood peak, prepare a sandbag wall to prevent water entering, or divert water and silt away from your property. Make sure you have flat clean ground as your foundation. Start with areas of high risk, for example external doors and garage doors. Ask your neighbours in your complex to give you a hand, and then sandbag their entrances.

Using wide masking tape, fix a sheet of black plastic or a tarpaulin one metre from the ground across the doorway and extend the plastic 50cm on either side of the doorway. Leave one meter across the ground in the direction you expect the water will come. The plastic is for waterproofing the bags are for weight.

Place two rows of sandbags across the plastic along the ground. Make sure the bags sit close together but don't overlap. Kick them into place. Place another layer of bags at right angles to and on top of the first layer.

When protecting a garage door, make a crescent shape so that the centre is further from the garage door and the edges closer to the garage door. For crescent shaped walls you need to place a row of sandbags behind the plastic as well. Get plenty of people involved to lessen the work. Don't bend your back when lifting the bags and don't overfill sandbags. 

The Social Enterprise Division of the Brotherhood of St Laurence has become involved in preparing the community to protect their homes by working with local councils and emergency service organisations to provide sandless floodbags, called FloodSax to residents at risk of flooding.