F6, the response has been one all of Australia should be proud of, yet there are idiot Australian conservatives striving to get partisan jabs at the expense of Anna Bligh, Premier Queensland, and at Julia Gillard PM. Have you seen any of Bligh on tv there?
A furious sandbagging operation is under way in the western Victorian city of Horsham, which faces a "one-in-200-year" flood event as the Wimmera River threatens to inundate 500 homes.
State Emergency Service spokeswoman Bridie O’Connor says residents are on high alert as the river climbs towards an expected record peak, due about lunchtime.
Floodwaters inundate Skipton's main street. Photo: Melanie Faith Dove
With monthly rain records falling in a matter of days last week, the city of 14,000 about 300 kilometres north- west of Melbourne faces isolation as roads succumb to rising water. The Wimmera is also expected to split the city.
Ms O’Connor said 500 properties were at risk from the torrent, which could top the major floods of September 1988 and August 1909.
Ms O’Connor said that, while there had been no evacuation warnings "a relief centre has been opened and extensive community work is being undertaken’’.
‘‘Residents are on high alert,’’ she said.
Nearby Burnt Creek had already inundated one bridge on Williams Road and was lapping at two other bridges.
"It is not expected to peak for another two to three days, which could put those bridges at risk,’’ she said.
Earlier, SES spokeswoman Natasha Duckett said: "This could be a one- in-200-year flood event. That's the worst-case scenario but it could happen,"
"The Wimmera River is higher than the levels seen in September 2010 and it's still rising. They have had 130mm (of rain) in the river over a three-day period.
"The township could be bisected with a waterway right through the middle of town and the (Western) Highway cut."
Meanwhile, low-lying sections of Echuca are under water this morning after the Campaspe River peaked at the predicted height of 95.48 metres last night.
Up to 100 homes were inundated and about 170 people evacuated. The river reached its highest level at the Ogilvie Avenue Bridge near the centre of town at 9pm.
Houses on both sides of the avenue were inundated. The road was reduced to one lane, which soon jammed with traffic as hundreds of people headed into town in cars and on foot to see the spectacle.
The river level had dropped significantly today and the water was moving considerably slower.
Forty-six Victorian towns have now been flooded, affecting more than 1600 properties and more than 3500 people, with 5200 calls for assistance to emergency services.
About 35km south at Rochester, water has inundated the local sewage treatment works, and residents must now wait for drinking water to be trucked in.
There is a new flood threat at Warrnambool, where it's feared some properties might be inundated near the junction of the Hopkins River and Emu Creek, east of the west coast city. Homes at Panmure and Allansford were also under threat.
At Wycheproof in the Mallee region northwest of Melbourne, residents at 522 properties on the town's west side were given a preliminary evacuation warning via Victoria's automated telephone warning system.
Those that chose to leave were taken to a relief centre at nearby Donald.
And at Dadswells Bridge, near Horsham, water streaming across the Western Highway at Burnt Creek has lifted the road surface, forcing its closure.
Around Victoria, more than 3500 people have fled their homes, 43 towns have been affected and more than 1400 properties have been flooded.
More towns could be affected later this week by the extreme rainfall that has battered the state, many of them having endured two other floods in the past five months.
Police deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe has warned that people should never enter floodwaters and that 50 people have been rescued in the past week, 30 of whom were in stranded vehicles.
The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting drier weather in affected regions this week.
The town of Horsham in Victoria is bracing itself for the worst flood in a century.
Transcript SCOTT BEVAN, PRESENTER: To Victoria, where floods have now swept through almost a third of the state and possibly claimed the life of a 7-year-old boy.
Emergency crews have spent several hours searching for the child, who disappeared while swimming in a flooded billabong near Shepparton.
Meantime, the town of Horsham in the central west is bracing for the worst flood in a century.
The Wimmera River is expected to peak in the next 24 hours and more than 100 homes have been evacuated.
Lisa Whitehead reports.
GAVAN HOLT, LODDON SHIRE MAYOR: The amount of water that came down that river there, that European settlement hasn't seen, right through central Victoria, with all those main rivers all flooding at the one time.
TED BAILLIEU, VICTORIAN PREMIER: It's incredibly confronting. And on the ground in the aftermath, it's incredibly distressing.
LISA WHITEHEAD, REPORTER: No one really knows how bad this will get. Or how much damage will be done. But the floods are already being labelled the worst in Victoria's recorded history.
TED BAILLIEU: Every farm dam is full, every reservoir is full and there are just enormous sheets of water moving down rivers. Kilometres and kilometres long.
LISA WHITEHEAD: It's the result of record rainfall, from the centre across to the west and up to the state's north.
JULIA GILLARD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Of course, we've seen quite severe flooding in Victoria, communities right across Victoria that are facing some of the worst flooding that they've ever seen.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Prime Minister Julia Gillard has travelled to Ecucha on the Murray River, where the flooding proved less severe than predicted but still left a trail of damage.
WENDY BROOKES, BUSINESS OWNER: I was told by the owner who'd lived here for many generations that it had never flooded.
CHRIS POLLOCK, FARMER: The river has broken out and come around. The hay has come off the paddock and smashed into the vans. And we've got a swamp on your farm that Dad talked about filling up and the water ran uphill and ran out like a rapid down the other side. To see that volume of water, it's just been totally amazing.
LISA WHITEHEAD: The people of Bridgewater, a few hours' drive north of Melbourne, are cleaning up and assessing their losses after floodwaters swamped the town. Two hundred thousand megalitres, five times the trigger for a flood alert, came down the Loddon River on Friday. There's a trail of damaged properties and ruined crops, raising the question, could anything have been done to protect the dozens of communities in the path of these floodwaters?
GAVAN HOLT: People may think we could've done more but we don't know what we could've done more.
TED BAILLIEU: We need to understand that Victoria's had an extraordinary run of rainfall in the last four or five months, and that itself is having an impact and that makes mitigation that much harder. But there may well be local works that can be done and if that's possible and appropriate, then we'll certainly give that serious consideration.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Because it's not over yet.
Next to face what's predicted to be their worst flood ever are the people of Horsham in the west. They're busy doing what they can to stave off the rising Wimmera River.
COLIN HEPBURN, HORSHAM RESIDENT: If it doesn't go any higher than that, I will do it easy. If it goes to there, I might be a bit hard.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Scenes like this are being repeated all over Horsham today as locals band together to help each other protect homes and businesses from rising floodwaters. And by tomorrow, if the predictions are correct, the floodwaters will reach this height.
There's been nothing like it in living memory. The Wimmera River is expected to peak at 3.85m overnight. A one-in-200 year event.
STEPHEN WARREN, INCIDENT CONTROLLER, SES VICTORIA: This floodwater is right through all the drainage system underneath the town. So all the stormwater drains are full of floodwater. If we actually have a serious rain event that came along here, that water has nowhere to go. It will only fill up all the roads and create a lot of inconvenience and a lot of more isolation.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Bernadette Lakin and her son Dean are anxiously watching the water levels rise. Her house is just metres from the water's edge and they've been busy sandbagging and moving her household possessions to higher ground.
BERNADETTE LAKIN, HORSHAM RESIDENT: We've had a 10 year drought and now we've had floods in a few months. It's unreal, really, and all our lakes were all empty. Now there's nowhere for any water to go 'cause they're all full so it's ridiculous, isn't it? LISA WHITEHEAD: The Lakins aren't sure if they will be covered by insurance.
BERNADETTE LAKIN: I'll have to find all that out, really. But yeah, there's a lot of us are going to be in a lot of trouble, I think.
LISA WHITEHEAD: While the Victorian flood victims are set to face the same battles on that issue as those in Queensland, the disaster scenarios are very different. While the people of Horsham have an anxious wait ahead of them, the atmosphere here is calm and people have had time to prepare.
MICHAEL RYAN, HORSHAM MAYOR: This is really serious at our level. There's no question about that but to put it in the perspective of the lives lost in the Queensland floods and the massive damage to their infrastructure and their whole life.
STEPHEN WARREN: In comparison this is a very controlled environment. We know what's happening and we are hoping not for any of the flash flooding which was obviously devastating for communities.
LISA WHITEHEAD: Three hundred and fifty people in low lying areas of Horsham have been alerted to evacuate as the river is expected to almost reach its peak tonight and the high water levels will continue until Wednesday. The town will be split in two by the floodwaters and 580 properties are expected to see water over the floor level.
Friends of Jordan at the funeral of Donna Rice, 43 and Jordan, 13 at Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery. Picture: Craig Greenhill Source: The Courier-Mail
IN matching white coffins, placed on top of each other and covered in flowers, Toowoomba flood victims Donna and Jordan Rice were laid to rest together today at a moving graveside ceremony.
Mrs Rice and her 13-year-old son were swept to their deaths in last week's flash flood which roared through the garden city, after a rescue rope snapped.
It was the first funeral for the 20 Queensland flood victims identified so far.
Jordan was hailed a hero after sacrificing his life to save his little brother Blake, 10.
Clutching tissues and with his head bowed, a tearful and bereft-looking Blake joined his father John Tyson and older brothers Kyle, 16, and Chris, 22, as pall bearers.
Before hundreds of mourners in the leafy grounds of the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetry, the caskets were marched in one at a time - Mrs Rice's to the strains of Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven, Jordan's to Cat Stevens' Father and Son.
Among the mourners was Warren McErlean, the shattered rescuer who tried in vain to save Mrs Rice and her son.
Today, he threw a comforting arm around Blake, who he managed to pluck to safety from the Toowoomba torrent.
Mr Tyson and Chris both paid emotional tributes to their lost loved ones.
Chris told how he had taunted Jordan, nicknamed "Weedsy", for "always being such a sook" - only to see his brother die as his "little hero".
"You were so shy, always hanging off mum," he said.
"You were petrified of water, heights and even the dark. How wrong was I - here you go losing your life from one of your biggest fears to save your little brother.
"You made me so proud. What you did took heart, courage and love.
"You're my little hero. I love you Weedsy."
Mr Tyson said Donna was "the perfect mum", cooking, cleaning and doting on doting on her children, the while Jordan was "quiet, reserved but also loving and very protective".
"I don't think I can put into words just how much I'll miss them,"said.
"The fire in my heart will continue to burn until my time comes to join them. But until then, all I can do is think of you both and tell anyone who'll listen just how much I love youse both and how special you are.
"God speed, my little angels."
As the bodies were committed - first Mrs Rice and then Jordan - mourners released dozens of colorful balloons into the sky.
Jordan was buried on top of Mrs Rice, symbolising a child in his mother's arms.
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