Nagambie SES responds to flooding, CFA urges residents to prepare for more

By Murray Silby and James Kleeman

Oct 13, 2022

Deluge: Flooding at the Nagambie CFA station. (Photos: Murray Silby)

Nagambie search and rescue services have been responding to calls from the early hours of the morning today, as the flood situation evolves across the region.

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Moderate flooding has been reported along the Goulburn River and its tributaries, with 30 to 80mm of rainfall observed along the Goulburn River catchment since 9am Wednesday.

The exit from the Goulburn Valley Hwy to Nagambie (on O’Dwyer Rd) has been cut off.

Nagambie Country Fire Authority captain Allen Treble said the CFA had been working closely with the SES in responding to calls and assisting with flooding at their own station.

“The first call-out that we received this morning was around 6.45am to request for SES help with flooding at a shed,” Mr Treble said.

“There's been multiple calls and with the SES as the controlling agency, we’ve been doing our best to help them out.

“We've been to six other call-outs this morning helping them, as well as their own station getting flooded.”

Getting worse: Flooding in the streets of Nagambie.

Mr Treble urged residents to pay closer attention to weather warnings as they were updated in the coming days.

“With these weather patterns coming through, we got plenty of warning in this, I think that people weren't prepared properly for the weather pattern — it caught them off guard,” he said.

“They need to start paying more attention to these weather warnings — what the bureau will put out and also the state emergency services.”

Mr Treble said a large amount of residents were not properly prepared, which had placed further pressure on emergency services.

"What people don't realise is they put pressure, so much pressure, on the emergency services, and it's not just SES — it's fire, it's police as well, because we all get deployed when things get stretched to the limit,” he said.

“It puts a huge amount of pressure on the whole emergency services system and we just can't make it to all the calls, unfortunately.

“I've lived in Nagambie the majority of my life and there are areas that do flood to a degree, but it doesn't get to what we've recently seen on televisions where houses have been inundated and halfway up the walls.”