First flood: The recently completed GOTAFE building in Seymour’s central business district did not have to wait long for its first flood.
Photo by
Wayne Herring
Don’t they say to listen to the locals, and especially those who have “seen it all before”?
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Well, come the afternoon of Thursday, October 13, 79-year-old Bill Solomon was telling the Seymour Telegraph that the town he had lived in all his life was facing a pretty “dire” situation.
“I’ve seen a lot of flooding here over the years and this one doesn’t look real flash, I don’t think, because the river (Goulburn) and the creek (Whiteheads) are both in minor flood and if this rain keeps going, as it looks like it will today and tomorrow, I don’t like the look of it at all. It could be one of Seymour’s worst floods,” he said.
Early Thursday evening, Seymour residents and business owners were eagerly sandbagging their properties and just after 7.30pm, Vic Emergency told people located in the area bounded by the Goulburn River to Redbank Rd, along the Goulburn Valley Hwy to Whiteheads Creek up to the railway line and along to the bridge crossing the river to the south, to evacuate immediately.
People located in low-lying areas around the Goulburn Valley Hwy/Redbank Rd area were also advised to evacuate immediately.
Wrong way: Key roads were cut as the flood waters rose in Seymour.
Photo by
Wayne Herring
Like many of Seymour’s inhabitants, Telegraph reporter Bianca Hall and Shepparton News deputy editor Max Stainkamph were displaced by the rising floodwaters and had to find makeshift accommodation.
Many of the town’s residents moved to the Seymour evacuation facility at the aquatic centre in Pollard St.
As Mr Solomon had said, Whiteheads Creek and the Goulburn River broke their banks, causing major flooding of the lower areas of the town, including much of the central business district, with rainfall upstream and Lake Eildon at capacity leaving no other place for the water to go.
The Goulburn River peaked in Seymour at 8.26 metres about 3am on Friday, well above the major flood level of 7m.
It has been receding since.
Island in the stream: Toyworld in Wallis St, Seymour, became an island during the flooding.
Photo by
Wayne Herring
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