River rising: The footpath alongside the new Echuca-Moama bridge collecting floating debris coming down the Campaspe River on Saturday.
Photo by
Steve Huntley
Echuca was set to pass a devastating milestone on Sunday, October 16 with 1000 properties expected to be impacted by flood waters.
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Speaking on Sunday afternoon, Victoria SES chief officer operations Tim Wiebusch said a major emergency was developing.
“We are expecting a peak this afternoon of 96.3m at that location, and this will mean that there will be around 1000 properties that will either be surrounded, or some of those, inundated, by floodwaters,” Mr Wiebusch said.
“Fortunately, we have have good support there for our emergency services from the ADF and other local community groups that have been doing a terrific effort in terms of providing some mitigation through sandbagging and other means in that community.
“That will be the first of two peaks for the Echuca community, with the Murray River then coming into play again Monday into Tuesday.
“We are expecting a flood peak of around 95m, which is above the major flood level.”
Echuca’s position means it is facing the dual threats of the Murray and Campaspe Rivers in flood.
“Echuca has an evacuation message out for a number of parts of that community, but also ‘too late to leave’ coming into play in some locations,” Mr Wiebusch said.
Campaspe Shire Council has announced that St Mary's Primary School has been opened as an evacuation centre on the west side of Echuca.
It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced $1000 one-off payments available for adults and $400 payments for children in Campaspe Shire.
No play today: Lions Park in Campaspe Esplanade in Echuca on Saturday.
Photo by
Steve Huntley
By Sunday afternoon, flood water had inundated a number of homes on Campaspe Esplanade and Ogilvie Ave.
Ron Ash told The Riverine Herald that his Campaspe Esplanade home had never been flooded in the time he’d lived there.
“We’ve been here for 40 years and never had water through before,” he said.
“We put some sandbags down, but there’s water through the cupboards of the house.”
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