The massive clean-up of flood damaged property kicked into full gear in Shepparton, Mooroopna and surrounds at the weekend.
Services are also returning, some more slowly than others, and advice on the current flood and clean-up situation continues to come to light.
The Murchison Bridge has opened to locals only — and then only light vehicles and foot traffic, with the extent of flood damage to the bridge yet to be determined.
Shepparton incident controller Ray Jasper said emergency services had continued pumping operations across Mooroopna again today, with a number of roads still covered by floodwater.
“We’re certainly doing significant pumping today in Mooroopna — Watt Rd, Toolamba Rd and Lenne St, and we’re certainly looking at whether or not we can open them today in some shape or form,” Mr Jasper said.
Three impact assessment crews were in Shepparton today, and will continue to assess flood-damaged homes across the Goulburn Valley.
“They are still working through today and have nearly finished Murchison, they will get into Kialla West today, they are certainly working hard to try and finalise damage assessments and will continue further down as they can get access,” Mr Jasper said.
Mr Jasper urged any residents with flood damage to notify authorities.
He also assured the region that the incident control centre would not close before seeing off any further weather complications this week.
"We're still going to be here 24/7 through until tomorrow with thunderstorms and potential heavy rain patchy across the catchment,” Mr Jasper said.
"We'll see what that does to our creeks and rivers, we'll make an assessment on that tomorrow night into Tuesday.
"We need to get the water to have cleared through Bunbartha and into Barmah which won't be until the end of the week, so at least until the end of the week but we'll certainly let the community know."
Emergency services have warned it remains unsafe to return to Bunbartha and its surrounding townships, with several roads still cut off throughout the area.
Mr Jasper said the emergency warning would remain in place until at least tomorrow (Monday, October 24).
“Unfortunately, we’ve tried to get into Bunbartha to assess the roads but looking at that emergency warning, that will be current for the next 24 hours,” Mr Jasper said.
“The community is still isolated, road access is still cut so that emergency warning will have to stay on until we can open the roads and make sure it’s safe to travel.”
If you have not yet evacuated Bunbartha, you should shelter in the highest location possible.
A relief centre has been opened at Nathalia Community Centre at 42 Robinson St.
Mr Jasper reinforced the message to residents to not drive through floodwaters, with one road rescue completed on Sunday and three near Nathalia on Saturday.
There was good news for Barmah and the Lower Moira area, Mr Jasper said, with a predicted peak of 7.6m not expected.
However, an evacuation warning remains in place for Barmah and Lower Moira, and it is too late to leave the community in these areas.
“We’re still focusing on Barmah and the Lower Moira area; the good news is we don’t think it will get to the 7.6m predicted level, we’re thinking around 7.3m, 7.35m it will peak at,” he said.
A moderate flood warning remains in place for the Numurkah and Nathalia areas following minor flooding along the Broken Creek at Walsh’s Bridge, but Mr Jasper stressed river levels were unlikely to reach 2010 levels.
“We need to reinforce for the Nathalia and Numurkah communities this is not a 2010 event,” Mr Jasper said.
“We know the Broken Creek has had slight rises in Nathalia yesterday afternoon but it is still a minor event, we’ll state all the way through, this is different to the 2010 event, what they’ve got is what they’re going to see, it’s still rising a little bit but there’s no concerns around that.”
Echuca-Moama was bracing for the peak of the Murray River — expected to be around 95-95.2m above sea level — sometime overnight into early this morning at the time of writing.
Community information sessions were held at Seymour and Mooroopna today, with more to come in the smaller towns of the region this week.
Greater Shepparton City Council has advised that it will collect all three bins this week for residents who had their kerbside bin collection missed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday last week.
It has also warned residents cleaning out their houses to be wary of the proper process for disposing of asbestos, with more details at this link: https://bit.ly/3TiNjQg
Free, unlimited wifi is also available in many public places across the municipality.
The much-anticipated launch of VLocity trains on the Shepparton Line due to happen today has been postponed due to the Goulburn Valley floods.
However, a V/Line timetable change for north-east train and coach services at the same time still went ahead. Find it here: https://www.vline.com.au/Timetables/Additional-pages/october-2022-timetables
At the moment, coaches are replacing trains on the Shepparton Line. They are not stopping at Mooroopna or Murchison East due to due to residual floodwater and accessibility issues.
Once it is safe, assessments of what repair work is required for trains to safely return to the line will be carried out.
When trains start running again on the Shepparton line, all services will be VLocity trains.
Services between Southern Cross and Seymour are back up and running — although maintenance works mean coaches are replacing trains on some evening services until Wednesday.