Wagga waits for the flood

The burgeoning Murrumbidgee River has turned into Wagga Wagga's leading attraction
as the town nervously watches the floodwaters rise.
Locals and tourists have come in their hundreds over the past week to view the
river's steady expansion, as it threatens to flow over the levee and flood the
southern NSW town.
But with authorities secretly confident the levee will hold despite an anticipated
100mm of rain over the next two days, some are making the most of the spectacle.
Animator Phil Henderson, who has lived in the town for the past four years, has
stationed himself in a fold-up chair to capture the Hampden Bridge on canvas.
The elderly, excited kids, cyclists and dog-walkers all stop to check out his
handiwork as they take happy snaps of the swollen river.
Mr Henderson has not seen a flood like it, although he refuses to call it the worst.
"I'd say it's the best I've seen," he told AAP.
"While people have been inconvenienced, and I feel for the farmers of course, but
this is just what we needed.
"The drought is over."
It's ironic that rain, which had NSW farmers hopeful of a bumper crop this season,
has failed to stop, flooding fields and destroying crops.
Estimates have the total losses in NSW somewhere about the $1 billion mark.
But spectators in Wagga look on the Murrumbidgee with something akin to awe.
A nervous Danette Robinson came down to take photos but also to check out the latest
information.
About 600 residents in the north of the town have already been evacuated and told
they might not be able to come home for at least a week.
"My friend had to move back in with her parents," Ms Robinson said.
"She's not very happy."
Ms Robinson lives with her son in a rented house just west of the river, and right
at the point where some suggest the levee might burst.
The river peaked at 9.67m on Monday afternoon - about 13cm shy of the levee's rim.
"I was just talking to the council guys and I asked them whether the levee would go
over and they said 'highly unlikely but put your stuff up just in case'," she said.
"So I am concerned."
Various roads in northern Wagga have been closed, including the main highway in,
while fields from the east of the town to Gumly Gumly remain underwater.
With dams and the levee gates closed, storm water has also had nowhere to go, which
has so far damaged council headquarters to the tune of about $500,000.
There are no early estimates of the total damage, although insurance companies are
destined to get a call after 24 cars were submerged in a CBD car park.
"I almost parked there!" exclaimed Ms Robinson, who had luckily chosen to go to the
pub for a beverage instead of doing the grocery shopping.
At 3.30pm AEDT on Tuesday, the river had fallen to about 5.6m, which means fewer
onlookers.
"Yesterday it was chockers," Mr Henderson said.
"I saw probably 100 people come past in just five minutes."
Council workers, stuck on a 12-hour shift directing stickybeaks away from a closed
road near the city centre, have also managed to pass the time watching the local
wildlife.
There have been brown snakes, blue-tongued lizards, a platypus, even two stranded
possums travelling down the Murrumbidgee on a log.
"So the crowds haven't entertained us much, but the animals sure have," one worker
said.
The next deluge is expected late on Wednesday and Thursday morning.