In Victoria, many towns are beginning to clean up after floodwaters swept through. But in parts of the state's north, residents remain on alert with some rivers still to peak.
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00:00 I'm here on a closed road at Maroopna next door to Shepparton where the
00:05 Goulburn River is continuing to slowly rise. You can see behind me a huge flood
00:10 plain that is completely inundated by the Goulburn River but it looks quite
00:14 calm and it looks like it's moving quite slowly but if you follow me around to
00:19 this road you can see exactly how quickly the floodwaters have crossed
00:23 certain roads that are closed here. This road here was open 24 hours ago and 12
00:28 hours ago it was bone-dry and overnight you can see just how much the river has
00:33 completely covered it. It's very deep we've even seen fish swimming over this
00:39 road. It is something, it is a road you definitely don't want to be driving
00:42 across or coming anywhere near and it is still rising. Residents have been coming
00:48 down here this morning to have a quick look and told us that in 2022 the waters
00:52 came up so far that they covered this bridge here beside me. Now we know that
00:58 the flood event right now is not going to be that bad. It is predicted to reach,
01:02 the Goulburn is predicted to reach moderate levels at midnight tonight and
01:06 the SES gave a press conference earlier and told us how they're warning residents
01:11 to prepare. We've door-knocked 300 properties where we're going to see
01:16 water potentially in their streets and also cutting off a number of access
01:20 roads in that area so again our key message do not attempt to drive through
01:25 floodwaters. It could very well be the last decision you make but also that
01:29 people may see water come on to their properties but we're not expecting any
01:33 inundations above floor with this flooding around Shepparton and Maroopna
01:37 this time around. Many residents here in Maroopna and in Shepparton that we've
01:41 spoken to this morning say that they are relieved that they're not going to see a
01:45 repeat of what happened in 2022 but they're also incredibly anxious. This
01:50 river is still rising and I think until they they see the peak that is meant to
01:56 occur at midnight tonight or possibly tomorrow morning and then they see that
01:58 river start to lower that anxiety is going to remain. We've spoken to people
02:02 who say that they're still living in caravans on their properties because
02:06 their homes still haven't been rebuilt. There are houses along the Goulburn in
02:10 Shepparton that are skeletons of what they used to be. A woman here spoke to me
02:14 a little earlier and had tears in her eyes just because of the fear that she
02:18 that the 2022 crisis may repeat itself. So I think that that that fear and that
02:23 anxiety is still very palpable here even though we know that it's not going to
02:26 reach the levels that we saw 15 months ago.
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