00:02I'm here in Alice Springs and as you can see behind me, this road is closed because the
00:08Todd River is flowing. Now even in the short amount of time that I've been standing here,
00:14this river has come up. It is rising, but I've been watching the river levels this morning.
00:19They're going up and they're going down. The Todd River is a flash flooding catchment,
00:23which means that it is prone to those rapid rises of water, but it also goes away again
00:28quite quickly. Now normally in Alice Springs, we are used to clear blue skies and very warm,
00:35sunny weather. But over the last few weeks in Alice Springs, it's been humid. There's been rain.
00:41It's not the typical desert weather that we expect here. But overnight, about 30 mils of rain fell
00:47north of Alice Springs. That water is making its way down and it comes, like I said, after a period
00:52of wet weather anyway. There's been widespread falls and storms over the Simpson District,
00:58which has caused the ground to be quite saturated and wet. So that helps this flood water to come up
01:05and really notice it in the town. Now for desert people in Alice Springs, when the river flows,
01:10it is exciting, but people do need to remember that there is a watch and act alert. And that means
01:15that
01:15there could be minor flooding in Alice Springs. Because of this, there has been an emergency declared
01:21and there have been two emergency shelters set up in town. One at Centralian Senior College and one at
01:28Centralian Middle School. If people are going there, you need to take your own supplies, a swag if you're
01:34going to set up the camp, or maybe some food because it is just a safe dry spot to be
01:39if your house is
01:39flooded. And all other government schools are open today. As you can see behind me, this road is closed.
01:45There are other roads closed in Alice Springs where there's flood waters. And again, remember,
01:49if it's flooded, forget it. There's no need to drive through flooded water.
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