1955 flood.
View of the hospital (right back) from the Long Bridge during the 1955 flood.
Image printed from a photoengraving block held in the Maitland Hospital Collection (item 48)
Maitland Hospital can be seen to the right in the background of this photograph which was taken from the eastern end of the Long Bridge. There is flood debris in the foreground and, as flood expert Chas Keys observes, judging by the water on the floodplain the flood hadn’t finished.
Click on the images for a larger view.
Further views of and towards the Long Bridge, 1955.
The disastrous 1955 flood was a significant marker in the locality’s history. It was also, and remains, a reminder that Maitland is built on a floodplain. The Hunter River floods. Flood waters flow, sometimes rapidly, into low lying areas.
The Maitland Hospital was wisely built on Campbell’s Hill and, as such, has not risked being inundated by flood waters. It has, however, provided a vantage point for viewing the floods and their damage, and it has provided a base for emergency assistance and medical treatment.
On being asked whether his flood research has encountered material about the Maitland Hospital during the 1955 flood, Chas Keys generously shared the following stories and observations.
Hearing screaming
Mary Tobin was in the hospital at the time of the flood having just given birth to her daughter. She and her husband, John, lived on the Bolwarra Flats. Mary told me years ago of hearing people screaming on the Long Bridge, the ends of which had collapsed so they were trapped as they clung to the railings. The water was fast-flowing over the deck of the bridge. Others were clinging in trees. They were all there for a few hours before being rescued by a surfboat crew from Swansea-Caves Beach.
Emergency operations managed from the hospital grounds
Sergeant Ted Cahill of the NSW Police and two other policemen ran what could be called an emergency operation from under a tree in the hospital’s grounds. They had been in the Courthouse but were washed out when water went through it and had to be rescued by an Army DUKW and taken to Campbells Hill. There Ted co-ordinated surfboats and helicopters in rescue and food supply missions which lasted for about ten days. The mayor of the time, Sandy McDonald, ran a separate operation from the Town Hall and did a lot of media work as well.
Army DUKW in the hospital grounds, February 1955.
Image printed from a photoengraving block held in the Maitland Hospital Collection (item 48)
By surfboat to hospital
David Russell of Kiama told me of his story of helping. The medical connection is that he and his Air Force cadet mates did a lot of first aid work from the grounds of the Maitland Public School and were almost in the position of having to deliver a baby. One of their number was a first-year medical student who had to read up on the ‘how’ of it! Fortunately, the mother-to-be was transported by surfboat to the hospital just in time: it would have been a trip fraught with risk.
There would have been many admissions
There would have been many admissions to hospital, first with injuries (cuts, abrasions, fractures and possibly heart attacks) and later with flood-related illnesses which could have been of many types and may have occurred over months. They could have included respiratory ailments, hepatitis, tetanus, typhoid, salmonella and E.coli. Floodwater and flood mud harbour many viruses, parasites and bacteria, and rising damp and mould could have made houses dangerous to live in (and produced flu-like symptoms in some people) well after the floodwaters had receded. Then there are the psychological ailments including fatigue, stress-related illnesses, anxiety, sleeping problems and suicide ideation. I have no idea what the hospital’s records would hold, or whether anybody has ever studied admissions in 1955 or in any other Maitland flood, but you can guarantee there’d have been a spike in numbers of people admitted in big floods like the one in 1955.
Visit Maitland City Library’s Picture Maitland album Floods 1955 to view photographs of the 1955 flood and its aftermath.
Visit After the storm to see Kevin Parsons’ photograph of the hospital from the Long Bridge following the 2015 storm and local flooding.
Visit Nurses’ reunions to view photographs of the Hospital and views of the flood from the hospital in 1955.