THE Murray River continues to rise and is not expected to peak at Barham until Thursday, with moderate flooding expected.
The river water level was 6.04 metres at 1pm yesterday, with a predicted peak near the major flood level of 6.10 metres.
More than 70 people attended a community update at Koondrook yesterday.
Gannawarra Shire Council infrastructure and development director, Geoff Rollinson said authorities were planning for an event similar to the floods of 1993.
“It won’t be significant as 1993 but we’re acting as if it will be,” Mr Rollinson said.
In 1993, the river reached 6.10 metres – the fifth highest flood height on record and 12 centimetres lower than the highest ever level in 1917.
“Koondrook and the surrounding areas have a number of levee systems in place and those levees have gradually deteriorated over time and they do weep during an event.
“There have been some minor breeches that have occurred in advance of the flood that have been repaired.”
Mr Rollinson urged people to go to the Emergency Management Victoria website for up-to-date information, saying misinformation was a problem in the community.
“This is only one source of truth; go the Emergency Management Website to get that true story,” he said.
State Emergency Service incident controller, Andrew Gill encouraged people to contact the SES to provide local knowledge about what to expect.
“We’ve had a geotech have a look at some of the main areas, but that doesn’t give us a picture of the whole levee system so anything you know, we want to know about,” he said.
“It will test some of these levees that haven’t been tested for a long time.”
Meanwhile, extensive flooding is occurring in the southern Riverina, with the Edward River peaking near 8.62 metres yesterday morning. That made it the eighth-highest peak on record, surpassing the 1993 peak of 8.48 metres.
A peak around 5.8 metres is expected at Moulamein around October 25, compared with 5.28 metres in 1993.
