In Swan Hill it's a waiting game

from w
Although my home town is about four and a half hour's drive away, I am thinking of that place this week as the inland sea of the floods move slowly north. The weather is beautiful - sunny and calm, not stormy at all. Here's an update from the ABC today.
Victorians play flood peak waiting game
Updated Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:01am AEDT

A huge mass of water is making its way towards Swan Hill. (User submitted: Donna )

Emergency services say the unprecedented volume of water flowing into Victoria's north-west is making it hard to predict when floodwaters will peak. The floods are now about 95 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide, with the front now entering Swan Hill and the southern end near Kerang.

The peak is now slowly moving through the Benjeroop area and smaller communities have been swamped. Several communities including Pental Island and Fish Point have been on high alert for days while they wait for the waters to rise.

SES spokesman Lachlan Quick says it is a frustrating wait for some of the communities. "We are dealing with an unprecedented flood surge and that's what we're seeing," he said. "We don't have concrete data on how much and how quickly and what time it will affect these places, so that's actually what we're dealing with. It's a pretty dynamic situation up there. Looking across the weekend we know that the water will start to increase going through Swan Hill and in the townships either side we can expect to see the high levels. The bulk of the floodwaters will probably move through over the next week to 10 days."

The Murray River is expected to remain below the height of the Swan Hill levee, but water levels are expected to remain high for at least another week.