The levees built by the Bolwarra Embankment Committee and like groups throughout the Lower Hunter kept many floods at bay. The farmers of Bolwarra owed much to the leadership of men like Walter Worboys and Ray Vercoe, both of whom spent years on the committee's executive.
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Minor floods were excluded completely from the farms and the frequency of inundation was substantially reduced: crops were lost less often and growing seasons were less prone to interruption. Roads, too, were exposed to damage less frequently, saving the local council on repair costs. Undeniably, the impacts of the embankments on the rural economy and on the financial wellbeing of the farm community were positive. There were substantial failures when the banks couldn't keep floods out of Bolwarra Flats. On those occasions the costs in lost crops and livestock were substantial.
Embankments were'nt built to high engineering standards and their deficiencies were found by bigger floods such as 1893, 1913 and 1930. Failures occurred often. The damage was severe in 1949, when several hundred metres of embankment was damaged. Some sections washed away completely. This flood ushered in a period of frequent, often severe floods over the next seven years. The repetitive damage exhausted the farmers' ability to maintain their investments in maintenance and repair. Much work was required, and most of what was done was promptly undone by the Great Flood of 1955 which was the most severe of them all.
Sandbagging was attempted as the 1955 flood rose, but it was soon abandoned as hopeless: the event that was unfolding was huge. This was understood before the flood reached its unprecedented peak height at Singleton. Serious levee breaches led to massive deposits of sand and gravel between Lorn and Flat Rd and near the site of today's Harry Boyle Bridge. These were highly damaging to farm productivity.
The 1955 flood threatened the commercial viability of the Flats, a vital supplier of food to Maitland, Newcastle, Sydney and elsewhere. Several farms lost houses and sheds along with crops and livestock. Some families were forced out of agriculture altogether while others took to living on higher ground and commuting to their holdings. The resident population of the flats was much reduced after 1955. Exhausted both emotionally and financially, the remaining farmers were ready for change. This was to usher in the Department of Public Works which spent years rebuilding the banks to higher standards. These upgraded levees, with their associated spillways, were built between the late 1950s and the 1970s.
