With 48 hours notice, Julie Bartlett and her team at Corowa Caravan Park worked frantically to evacuate the property before the forecast flood level of 6.7 metres put the site under water.

Not only were bookings cancelled, 85 permanent caravan holders had to organise themselves or others to save their possessions in time.

“We had to contact all of those people, the majority of them were in Melbourne,” Ms Bartlett said.

“It’s going to be that wave of water coming in.”

The SES wanted everyone out of the park by 6am Saturday.

Volunteers from the SES, NSW Volunteer Rescue Association, RFS and local businesses all chipped in to move caravans and put sandbags in place on Friday.

But the floods were still expected to cause $30,000 to $40,000 in damage.

Ms Bartlett said she would be taking her concerns over the water releases from the dam to the Murray Darling Basin Authority.

“They held that water until it was way too high,” she said.

“The impact on Corowa is phenomenal.”

Corowa farmer and Murray River Action Group member Maurice Wilson was concerned the flooding could become an annual event if the dam continued to fill up before a wet spring.

The water had inundated 92 per cent of his 200-hectare property and created a three-kilometre river frontage from the family home.

“That’s a fairly high piece of water to have here for an ‘environmental flow’,” he said.

“They filled it up too early in August.”

This time last year, Lake Hume was at just 48 per cent after a dry winter.

The 2016 flooding meant Mr Wilson’s firewood business would be put on hold until the property dried out, but that was expected to take months.

The cost to damaged fences could be as much as $60,000.

MDBA can expect a serious conversation with the action group, but Mr Wilson was not expecting much change.

“That’s the way they operate – always have, always will,” he said.

“All our big floods are usually in October, so we’ve got more to look forward to.”