Victorians flee floodwaters

Thousands of Victorians have been forced from their homes as floodwaters spread
throughout towns and farms in the state's north and north-west.
Some towns were all but abandoned as major flood alerts were called for the Glenelg,
Wimmera, Loddon, Avoca and Campaspe Rivers, with minor flood warnings current for
nine other waterways, including the Maribyrnong and Werribee Rivers in Melbourne's
southern and north-western suburbs.
The State Emergency Service (SES) said more than 2000 people had been evacuated
throughout the state.
Evacuation warnings were issued on Friday afternoon for the towns of Bridgewater,
Carisbrook, Newbridge, Dadswell Bridge, Malmsbury and Durham Ox.
Residents had previously evacuated parts of Beaufort, Halls Gap, Great Western,
Charlton and Glenorchy following the heaviest rains in years.
Most centres recorded an entire summer's worth of rain in one night, the heaviest
fall occurring at Mt William, which recorded 133mm in the 24 hours to 9am on Friday,
with Stawell, Rupanyup and Ararat all recording close to 90mm.
In the town of Carisbrook in central Victoria, almost the entire population of
around 1000 people left as two creeks passing through the town broke their banks and
the nearby reservoir spilled over.
"We have a town that is totally, totally covered in water," local Country Fire
Authority (CFA) volunteer Philip Leech told AAP.
"Every house in the centre of town is under about four or five feet of water.
Everybody is out of town, apart from a few in double storey places who have stayed."
He said the normally tranquil, 10-metre wide Deep Creek was 500 metres wide and
running "very swiftly".
Most Carisbrook residents evacuated to the emergency centre in Maryborough to the west.
"There's been a bit of a build-up; we've had the rain all week and the reservoir has
been spilling over the last couple of days and it's just got too much for it to
handle," he said.
Another Carisbrook resident, Kerry Bennett, said she had more than a metre of water
running through her house when she left it.
"I don't know what to expect when I get back," she said.
Houses in Beaufort, around 65km south of Carisbrook, have also been inundated and
hundreds of properties evacuated.
Much of the town was evacuated overnight during heavy rain after creeks flowing into
Lake Beaufort burst their banks and flooded large areas including the town's main
street.
Beaufort has a population of about 1,700 and an evacuation centre has been set up on
high ground in the town.
It was one of six centres operating in the state on Friday night.
The town's lake, virtually empty less than a year ago during the drought, is now
full and concerns have arisen over its safety.
"I hope to God the lake wall holds and doesn't leak any more," said local Cora Bourke.
Ms Bourke's family home was inundated early on Friday.
"The house is underwater inside, it's slowly draining out," she said.
Neighbour Paul Tucker, 64, bought his house less than two months ago.
The flood inundated the house on Friday, before he had even settled the purchase.
"Last night it was just incredible, I never thought the creek would flood," Mr
Tucker told AAP.
"The house is under two feet of water at the moment, the house is three feet off the
ground so that's five feet of water, everything's just ruined.
It's the second flood in four months to hit Beaufort and many other towns in the area.
Several hundred properties are also under threat in Halls Gap, Great Western,
Charlton and Glenorchy.
In Charlton, residents received about 2000 phone and text messages advising them to
go to the relief centre at the local sports stadium.
SES director of operations Trevor White said the rivers will be monitored to
determine how communities will be affected over coming days.
"We are going to be blessed with no rainfall or no significant rainfall after today
for the next week, (but) we need to remember there will be downstream impacts on
those river systems," he said.
Fears that flooding would reach the suburbs of Melbourne eased on Friday afternoon
with the SES revising its warning for the Maribyrnong River.
It is now expected the river will peak at Maribyrnong, 10km from the city centre,
between 2am and 3am on Saturday morning.
But the flooding is forecast to be only minor.
Flooding also forced the closure of several major roads, including parts of the
Calder Highway and Pyrenees Highway in the north and the Sunraysia Highway and
Western Highway in the west.