Brodie Colvin says their house flooded at around 2 am. Photo: Chris Roe.
The Murrumbidgee peaked at 8.74 metres at Wagga Wagga this morning following a slow and steady climb towards the predicted moderate flood level of nine metres overnight.
An earlier figure of 8.96 metres was revised down on the BoM website following issues with the gauge overnight.
The river now remains steady at 8.73 metres.
Colvin Racing Stables sits outside the levee on Travers Street opposite the racecourse and foreman Brodie Colvin said he was surprised when the water came through the house at around 2 am.
“We’ve got a pretty strong levee of our own over the back there and we were watching the drains and it was fine at about 11 o’clock and wasn’t coming through that bad,” he said, explaining that his own family lives in the lower part of the house, now knee-deep in water.
“We were lucky that we’ve just come back from holiday and had a heap of stuff in the caravan and we moved up there this morning.”
With around 15 horses in the stable, the team was up at dawn wading through thigh-high water to lead the skittish animals out and load them into trucks.
“We’ve been here before,” said Brodie, with a shrug.
Wagga Council closed the Eunony Bridge Road at 8 pm on Monday as floodwaters rose.
Wilks Park on the northern side of Wiradjuri Bridge was submerged.
When the evacuation orders were issued on Sunday, many of the park’s homeless community were unable to move their tents and possessions in time and, by Tuesday morning, many lay under more than a metre of water.
Only a handful of rough sleepers remained by the evening, refusing to leave and turning down offers of assistance.
One camp huddled under tarps near the bridge kept a small fire burning overnight and managed to remain dry as water briefly crossed the raised road on the river side of the park.
At a community meeting on Monday evening, Acting Deputy Zone Commander Shane Hargrave told North Wagga residents that the waters had been slower moving than expected and that the flood warning and evacuation order would remain in place.
“We will be constantly reviewing the streets that are impacted,” he said.
“We’ll be doing a lot of assessment over the next two days to ensure that we can return as many people back to their homes as safely as possible and as quickly as possible.”
Eunony Bridge Road was closed at 8 pm on Monday. Photo: Wagga City Council.
While fine weather is expected over the next few days, Mr Hargrave warned that another cold front was expected to bring more rain late in the week.
“We are working quite closely with the bureau and also NSW Water as the dam operators to get a really good understanding of what that means for this community moving forward after that rainfall goes through,” he assured residents.
More dam releases are also expected but these will be coordinated with reduced flows.
“We’ll see the river levels dropping and then we’ll get to a point where they will just stay at that level for about a day or so and that will should give us some space between the dam but also the river itself.”
The gathered residents expressed concerns about security for evacuated homes and pointed out the number of rubber-neckers filling the roads and driving on levee banks for a look at the flooding.
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