A dozen cars recovered from Great Ocean Rd floods

Australian Community Media

round a dozen cars were recovered in a multi-agency vehicle recovery operation on January 22 2026 along the Great Ocean Road following last week’s flash flooding. Footage supplied by Victoria State Emergency Service

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00:00There are around a dozen vehicles, some on the rocks, some in the ocean, some on the beach,

00:18and we had an expert salvage team that came in and supported us in terms of extricating those

00:24via helicopter off the beach, off the coastline so that we can relocate them to a secure storage facility.

00:32Last week the communities of Cumberland River, Lawn, Wye River and Separation Creek experienced a

00:38significant storm event that saw really significant rainfall totals of 180 millimetres plus in this

00:46part of the world and what resulted from that was significant flash flooding affecting particularly

00:52those communities and a number of the caravan parks that reside along the riverbanks.

00:56That flash flood event resulted in a number of vehicles, caravans, personal belonging structures

01:04being pushed into the rivers and a number of those flowed out to sea and the object of today is really

01:11to support community in recovering those vehicles where we can. We were really conscious that we're

01:17in a really significant environmental area. Great Ocean Road is known across the world for its

01:23environmental values. We're also in an area of significant cultural heritage values for the

01:29Eastern Ma people. So we needed to work really closely with traditional owners, with land managers

01:36around how best to respect environment and cultural heritage values but recover those vehicles. So we looked at

01:43sea, we looked at land and we looked at air. Air was deemed the greatest option due to our ability to

01:51impact as least as possible the land and the ocean environment that exists here at Cumberland River and Wye River.

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