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There are still 13 major emergency warnings current as part of Victoria’s flood crisis this morning.
As of 6am today, residents of Echuca, Charlton, Bunbartha, Zeerust, Mundoona and Kaarimba in Victoria’s north were still being told to evacuate their homes immediately.
By 3pm, Charlton had been downgraded to a watch and act alert, but Barmah – on the Murray River north-east of Echuca – had been issued with an emergency warning to evacuate immediately.
Those in Shepparton, Mooroopna, Orrvale, Murchison and Kialla West are still being instructed that it is too late to leave their properties, and they should shelter at the highest possible location due to flooding.
VicEmergency has 60 current warnings and advice notices – primarily related to floods – which can be viewed on its website.
More defence force personnel will be deployed in Victoria to help with the flood emergency with evacuations around the state.
Australian Defence Force Brigadier Matt Burr said there were currently more than 200 boots on the ground helping emergency services.
Of those 170 were deployed in the northeast and another 40 were helping with Taipan helicopters and rotary wing aircraft, he said.
Brigadier Matt Burr, providing an update on the state’s flooding from the State Control Centre on Tuesday. Credit:Scott McNaughton
“At the request of the state the ADF will grow to a full size of 400 personnel deployed into the state, and there will be an additional two Chinook helicopters that will be deployed,” Burr said.
These would be used to help with evacuations, delivering food and feed to livestock, he added.
The state’s Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said the state was in “all phases of emergency” with evacuation orders across several parts of the state.
He said more than 700 flood rescued were carried out since the start of the flood emergency, with more than 7000 requests for help.
Warning: Post contains images some readers may find distressing
The small riverside town of Mooroopna is usually accessed from Shepparton by a four-kilometre long causeway, which is raised about the river flats, dotted with red gums.
Since Saturday, this road has been closed by the flooding, but this afternoon it opened to emergency vehicles and walkers, with a steady procession of people on foot and riding bikes and horses crossing to see how the shut-off community had fared.
Mooroopna locals ride to Shepparton to buy bread after the small town was cut off by the floods. Credit:Jason South
Only the pub and the bottle shop were open, and army trucks and emergency service vehicles rattled through the main street.
Some Mooroopna streets had seen significant flooding, with houses still covered in water past the window sills.
Flooding in the tiny town of Mooroopna, near Shepparton.Credit:Jason South
The causeway itself had bubbled in sections, with the road swelling over the water underneath and an audible sound of rushing water under the asphalt.
On the sides of the causeway were a couple of dozen kangaroos, both alive and dead.
The live ones stood, blinking, in the grass, forced onto solid ground of the verges as the swollen waters of the Goulburn rushed past.
And the dead ones lay, pink crosses marked on their chest, an unhappy collateral of collisions with evacuating vehicles, as animals and humans were forced to share what dry land remained.
Premier Daniel Andrews was quizzed today about Melbourne Water’s review of the Flemington Racecourse flood wall and whether it contributed to floods in the city’s inner north-west.
Andrews said:
I remain confident [Melbourne Water] will be able to conduct an appropriate review. They are a statutory authority and they may well – out of an abundance of caution, to make sure there’s no real even perceived issue with that – I’m certain they will look to get external advice.
They will do that work in good time and it will be there for all of us to look it. I think the chair has made the appropriate decision and I think, I’m certain that Melbourne Water can do this work and to believe in and they will report on it once that work is finished.
Maribyrnong residents had campaigned against the wall before it was built in 2007, and argued it would direct floodwater away from the natural flood plain and into their homes.
As mentioned at the premier’s press conference earlier, the Bureau of Meteorology is expecting more rain to develop from tomorrow.
The storms and showers forecast are not as severe as those which hit the state and caused widespread flooding last week, but could worsen the current conditions in Victoria’s north.
Weatherzone is also predicting that wet weather will hit the state on Thursday and worsen across the weekend.
The graphic below also appears to show particularly heavy falls on Sunday.
Storms have already hit South Australia and the Northern Territory over the past 24 hours.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was in Shepparton earlier today and viewed the floodwaters around the town from a helicopter.
Watch below to see some flooded areas near the northern Victorian city from above:
An emergency warning for the town of Barmah on the Murray River has been extended to include the nearby Lower Moira area.
The alert, first issued at 2.26pm today, says major flooding that exceeds or is similar to the 1993 flood event is likely to occur and could isolate the area in the next 24 hours.
Barmah is north-east of Echuca, in the state’s north.
A relief centre has been opened at Nathalia Community Sports Centre at 42 Robertson Street, Nathalia.
Cobram is also listed as a safe location evacuating residents can travel to.
The safest evacuation route is through Picola to the B400, according to the alert.
Oil has leaked into floodwaters in Shepparton, causing authorities to issue a chemical hazard notice for local residents.
The Fire Rescue Victoria alert issued this afternoon says there is an oil leak from a flooded house in Blaxland Street, Shepparton.
The alert says there is no immediate threat to the community and emergency services are currently attending to the incident.
Premier Daniel Andrews said “only a handful” of flood victims are at the Mickleham quarantine facility in Melbourne’s north, but hundreds are in serviced apartments across the state.
“There is only a handful there [at Mickleham]. Three or four people already,” Andrews said.
“We are not compelling people to go there or anything like that, it is a choice. It will work for some, and not for everybody.”
Units at the Mickleham quarantine centre.Credit:Paul Jeffers
There were hundreds of people in serviced apartments, the premier said today.
“We are using every possible accommodation option there is. I have taken calls from people who run school camps offering us the whole camp,” he said.
The Mickleham centre is a purpose-built $580 million quarantine facility, which was designed to house travellers when mandatory COVID-19 isolation periods were in place.
It was scheduled to close earlier this month – eight months after it took in its first residents – because COVID-19 isolation requirements had eased and demand was reduced.
Floodwaters were receding slowly across the state today, but showers and thunderstorms will develop again from tomorrow, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
“We will start to see further shower and thunderstorm activity developing over the northern parts of the valley, so the rest of the state will stay dry, but in that valley region we could see severe thunderstorms throughout Wednesday afternoon,” meteorologist Michael Efron said.
Floodwaters in Seymour last week.Credit:The Age
The main risk would be that activity extending further south, potentially impacting areas near and north of the Great Dividing Range, Efron told reporters today.
The rainfall would not be as heavy or widespread as last week, but there could be localised falls of up to 50 millimetres, he said.
“Those sorts of amounts could lead to flash flooding but also lead to river rises as well,” he said.
There were five major flood warnings for the Wimmera, Avoca, Loddon, Murray and Goulburn rivers, according to the bureau.
Overall, there were more than 14,700 applications for emergency payments, 55 sandbag collection points set up and 200 roads re-opened across the state.
Here is an updated map of flood warnings issued across Victoria, as of 3pm this afternoon.
Emergency warnings telling residents to evacuate immediately are active in Echuca, the Bunbartha area (just north of Shepparton) and Barmah (just north-east of Echuca on the Murray River).
Sixty-one warnings and 31 incidents are currently active according to VicEmergency.
An updated emergency warning telling Shepparton residents it was too late to leave was issued this afternoon. Mooroopna, Orrvale, Murchison and Kialla West residents near the regional centre have also been told it is too late to leave.
Kerang residents, in Victoria’s north-west, are also preparing for rising floodwaters which could isolate the town and an emergency warning asking people to move to higher ground remains in place between the town and Loddon Weir on the Loddon River.
On the Campaspe River between Echuca and Bendigo in Victoria’s north, the flood-hit town of Rochester is also still under an emergency warning asking people to move to higher ground. Downstream along the Campaspe from Rochester to the edge of Echuca is also under an emergency warning.
Other watch and act alerts remain in place across the state, including on the Avoca River in Charlton, in Victoria’s north-west.
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