Five hundred houses have been inundated, six evacuation orders issued, thousands of people have fled rising water and more than 120 have been rescued as Victoria sees extreme flooding across the state.
By midday Friday there were more than 90 active warnings across the state, including evacuation orders for the Maribyrnong River and in Benalla, Carisbrook, Seymour and Rochester.
Melbourne’s west was inundated as the Maribyrnong River flooded nearby streets.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Northern Victorian areas including Strathbogie North and Charnwood, a weather station at Creek Junction, have received more than 200 millimetres since 9am on Wednesday.
Victoria is not yet under a state of disaster, but Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said a declaration would “continue to be explored” over coming days.
A person missing at Newbridge, west of Bendigo, was found clinging to a tree branch just after 1pm.
The SES has received about 2700 requests for assistance across the state. Almost 120 Victorians needed to be rescued from floodwaters overnight, as rapid rises caught some off guard.
The centre of Seymour on Friday morning.Credit:Jason South
Victorian emergency services sent out almost 37,000 text messages to residents in flood-impacted areas across the state overnight as water catchments surged. Hundreds of people remained without power on Friday morning.
There are now 11 relief centres set up across Victoria and 50 collection points for sandbags. More than 200 arterial roads are closed.
By midday Friday, Seymour had copped the brunt of the flooding, with water levels breaking the May 1974 record of 7.64 metres early Friday morning. Deep potholes have formed on the Hume Freeway near Seymour, where the flooded Goulburn River threatens the town.
A boat plucked Joy Day, 82, and her family out of her flooded house in inundated Seymour on Friday morning, her cat unceremoniously stuffed in a bag.
Joy Day is rescued from her High Street home in Seymour by a friend in a boat after flooding overnight.Credit:Jason South
Day was told her two-storey house, which was spared inundation in the 1974 floods, would be OK after they sandbagged all the entrances. And then: “We got about two feet of water in 10 minutes”.
“As soon as I heard the water, I could see it. It came up through the floor. And then it just went wherever there was a gap. We had sandbagged everywhere,” she said.
Day is not sure how much damage has been done to her house. “I don’t know – it’s very muddy, the water.”
In the Melbourne suburb of Maribyrnong, many families went to sleep not expecting things to escalate.
Carolyn Bohm takes to a canoe on Oakland Street.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Oakland Street resident Carolyn Bohm said the first time she had an inkling her newly renovated home would be flooded was when she saw text messages from authorities at 6am. But she said warnings didn’t suggest her house would be one of the affected properties.
By 7am, the water was lapping up her driveway.
“I started to pack up some clothes for me and the kids’ toothbrushes,” she said. “We just tried to lift as much as we could off the ground. It’s gut-wrenching, horrible.”
Bohm said she was disappointed with the lack of warning.
Joe Cymbalista in his daughter’s flooded house in Oakland Street, Maribyrnong.Credit:Chris Hopkins
“There was a lot of rain last night, but we thought everything was fine. We weren’t too concerned,” she said. “We just had to make our own judgment call on what we should do very quickly.”
Authorities said the Bureau of Meteorology issued a major flood warning for Maribyrnong about 2am and an evacuation warning at 5.30am.
Joe Cymbalista, who was knee-deep in water trying to protect his daughter’s home, said there was a “mad scramble” to save what they could.
Elsewhere in Melbourne, kayakers were out at Darebin Creek, which was transformed from a benign water course to a raging torrent. Dog-walkers and locals meandered along Merri Creek in Melbourne’s inner north, taking photos of the gushing water, which had exceeded its banks and swallowed parts of the walking trail.
In Rochester, south of Echuca in the state’s north, SES volunteers responded to dozens of calls for help overnight, but unit volunteer Judith Gledhill said on Friday morning that members could only attend traffic accidents and fallen trees if road access was possible.
“We are not able to respond to calls for flooding because, unfortunately, our town is now going under,” Gledhill said. Many roads were now blocked in Rochester and more would be shut, she said.
Bruce Kilpatrick was among those who decided to stay in the town. By early morning, he found floodwater lapping at this front porch.
“We’re going to stay but if it hits the floorboards, then we’re going,” he said. “We’ve lifted everything up. We’ve been preparing for a week now.”
The weather bureau’s Diana Eadie said while the rain had largely eased across Victoria, the flood situation was “still very much evolving”.
Flooding is expected in Shepparton late on Saturday morning as the rainfall on the swollen Goulburn River moves downstream.
Premier Daniel Andrews said it would take “some time” to determine when residents in evacuation areas could return home.
He said 1500 Victorians had applied for emergency payments via the state government’s website.
The government was also working with the Commonwealth to ensure the Mickleham quarantine facility would be ready to reopen if needed.
“We’ve got 500 homes where they’ve got water over the floorboards and also another 500 that are cut off. That number will definitely grow,” he said.
With Lachlan Abbott, Josh Gordon, Rachael Dexter
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