Shepparton and Murchison on alert as VIC floodwaters rise

ABC NEWS (Australia)

In Victoria, many towns are beginning to clean up after floodwaters swept through. But in parts of the state's north, residents remain on alert with some rivers still to peak.

Transcript

00:00 I'm here on a closed road at Maroopna next door to Shepparton where the

00:05 Goulburn River is continuing to slowly rise. You can see behind me a huge flood

00:10 plain that is completely inundated by the Goulburn River but it looks quite

00:14 calm and it looks like it's moving quite slowly but if you follow me around to

00:19 this road you can see exactly how quickly the floodwaters have crossed

00:23 certain roads that are closed here. This road here was open 24 hours ago and 12

00:28 hours ago it was bone-dry and overnight you can see just how much the river has

00:33 completely covered it. It's very deep we've even seen fish swimming over this

00:39 road. It is something, it is a road you definitely don't want to be driving

00:42 across or coming anywhere near and it is still rising. Residents have been coming

00:48 down here this morning to have a quick look and told us that in 2022 the waters

00:52 came up so far that they covered this bridge here beside me. Now we know that

00:58 the flood event right now is not going to be that bad. It is predicted to reach,

01:02 the Goulburn is predicted to reach moderate levels at midnight tonight and

01:06 the SES gave a press conference earlier and told us how they're warning residents

01:11 to prepare. We've door-knocked 300 properties where we're going to see

01:16 water potentially in their streets and also cutting off a number of access

01:20 roads in that area so again our key message do not attempt to drive through

01:25 floodwaters. It could very well be the last decision you make but also that

01:29 people may see water come on to their properties but we're not expecting any

01:33 inundations above floor with this flooding around Shepparton and Maroopna

01:37 this time around. Many residents here in Maroopna and in Shepparton that we've

01:41 spoken to this morning say that they are relieved that they're not going to see a

01:45 repeat of what happened in 2022 but they're also incredibly anxious. This

01:50 river is still rising and I think until they they see the peak that is meant to

01:56 occur at midnight tonight or possibly tomorrow morning and then they see that

01:58 river start to lower that anxiety is going to remain. We've spoken to people

02:02 who say that they're still living in caravans on their properties because

02:06 their homes still haven't been rebuilt. There are houses along the Goulburn in

02:10 Shepparton that are skeletons of what they used to be. A woman here spoke to me

02:14 a little earlier and had tears in her eyes just because of the fear that she

02:18 that the 2022 crisis may repeat itself. So I think that that that fear and that

02:23 anxiety is still very palpable here even though we know that it's not going to

02:26 reach the levels that we saw 15 months ago.

02:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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