The Bruce family permanently relocated from Adelaide to their idyllic Morgan home on the River Murray at the start of the year — now rising flood waters have inundated the bottom storey.
"My bedroom is on the bottom floor so I've got water through my bedroom right now," Jamie Bruce said.
"It's really hard … I had a big cry yesterday and my nose bled, the stress is … you can't put it into words."
The family moved to a private rental on higher ground, but is now without power again.
"Thank goodness we managed to find a place, it was real touch-and-go for a while," Jamie said.
"We only had about a week to move all of our stuff … that was quite the effort, we pulled it off though.
"Yesterday we got told we had three hours' notice before we go told that power was cut to there as well.
"It's just another blow, it's never-ending."
The Bruce family has not visited their home for two days but they can see the water rising from a lookout across the river.
"We have to watch out for snakes though, the snakes find anywhere that is out of the water," Rob Bruce said.
Up to 180 gigalitres a day is flowing into the River Murray with locals told to expect between 190 and 220 gigalitres a day by the end of the year.
The river is expected to peak at Morgan in early January.
According to the State Emergency Service, more than 1,000 properties have already experienced some level of inundation, with that figure expected to reach 4,000 by the end of December.
About 2,000 customers have had their power disconnected with the number of homes and businesses in the dark forecast to double over the next few weeks.
Aged care residents relocated
Rising flood waters will see 30 aged care residents relocated from the Renmark Paringa District Hospital to higher ground.
Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network chief executive officer Wayne Champion said the flood level had reached a point where "phase two" of the hospital's relocation plan needed to be actioned.
"Two of the aged care buildings and the main hospital building at Renmark Paringa District Hospital are situated on higher ground than the rest of our aged care buildings," he said.
"Pleasingly, these buildings are located above the anticipated peak water height.
"It is possible to safely accommodate all of the remaining aged care residents and three of the remaining hospital patients in these buildings, ensuring that the residents are above the river water level."
Earlier this week, authorities relocated 20 of the most vulnerable residents to other aged care facilities.
"We are conducting the resident relocation out of an abundance of caution, to protect the health and wellbeing of our vulnerable aged care residents, who could easily slip or fall and therefore be subject to undue risk in the very unlikely event of a levee failure," Mr Champion said.
