Bretti Reserve flood drowning

An elderly man was swept away in floodwaters north of Gloucester.

Transcript

00:00So about 10 o'clock last night, the Barnard River broke its banks, which caused flooding

00:05to come down here to Bredi Reserve.

00:08There are 24 people on the reserve at the moment.

00:11One of them tried to cross the crossing just over my right shoulder and unfortunately got

00:16swept into the floodwaters.

00:18So at the moment we've got police rescue out here, SES, RFS, we have got divers on the

00:23way.

00:24We do actually unfortunately have one person that has tried to get into the floodwaters

00:29but got swept away in their car, in their caravan, which we're going to go in and take

00:34him out of the water and hopefully get him back to his family as soon as we can.

00:41Yeah, we haven't confirmed yet that he's still in the vehicle at this stage.

00:44The divers will confirm that for us once they do get here.

00:47We are hopeful that he's still in the vehicle.

00:50If he's not, we'll deal with that when it comes, but right now we've just got to confirm

00:55that he's in the vehicle, get him out and let the family know.

00:59Can't emphasise enough to everybody out there, please don't drive through floodwaters, don't

01:03walk through floodwaters, don't swim or kayak or boat in floodwaters.

01:08It's so simple.

01:09I just don't understand why anyone would want to do it.

01:12I understand sometimes you might get panicked, but you are safer where you are than trying

01:16to go through these floodwaters.

01:17Please, please stay out of the floodwaters.