Shepparton still under flood threat
Many Victorian towns are beginning to clean up after floodwaters swept through. But rivers are yet to peak in some areas, with Shepparton still under threat.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Sheperton is the sort of focus of attention at the moment. You can see the
00:05 Goulburn River behind me. It is very swollen. The waters are moving downstream.
00:10 We expect that they'll peak here in Sheperton likely maybe midnight tonight
00:14 or early into tomorrow morning. Initially we were expecting a peak of around 10.7
00:19 but the latest figures I've seen have that down slightly to perhaps a peak of
00:24 10.4. It's still a lot of water but it is lower than what we saw back in 2022
00:30 when this area was last hit by bad flooding. So good news that it is going
00:34 to be below that level. At the moment they're thinking that properties that
00:39 are likely to be affected it's more that they will be isolated or cut off as
00:43 opposed to anyone being inundated here. So you know the focus is on sort of some
00:49 some roads and bridges that cross the river that that will be cut off. Here's a
00:53 little of what the SES has had to say this morning. We've door knocked 300
00:58 properties where we're going to see water potentially in their streets and
01:02 also cutting off a number of access roads in that area. So again our key
01:06 message do not attempt to drive through floodwaters. It could very well be the
01:10 last decision you make. But also that people may see water come on to their
01:15 properties but we're not expecting any inundations above floor with this
01:18 flooding around Sheperton and Maroopna this time around. Obviously there's
01:22 quite a emotional response from people. There's a lot of anxiety because it has
01:26 only been 15 months since those terrible floods of 2022. So these communities, many
01:31 of them are still recovering. There's people still trying to rebuild from
01:34 those floods. So to have more water coming through has obviously been very
01:38 traumatic for a lot of people. As we've just heard fortunately here in Sheperton
01:43 they're not expecting houses to be affected by this flooding. We have seen
01:46 some downstream, upstream rather in Murchison. There were a couple of
01:53 houses there that were flooded yesterday. I spoke to one resident who thought he'd
01:58 be out of his house for at least a week. The bottom level had been flooded. He was
02:02 grateful that at least his second story hadn't been flooded which is what he
02:05 experienced in 2022. So while it hasn't been as bad as that flood 15 months ago
02:11 there are still people that are needing to do cleanup and there's also been
02:15 impact as well on on farmers. This is a fruit bowl area already because of the
02:21 wild weather we've seen in the lead-up to this flooding. It's thought that
02:25 growers have already lost around 10 million dollars from all of the rain and
02:30 hail that we've seen. This is our wettest January in Victoria in
02:36 a century. So there is an economic cost to all of this but good news that
02:40 at least here in Shepparton they're not expecting houses to be inundated.
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