Shepparton Floods 2022: regional city rebuilds after major natural disaster devastation

A month on from the devastating floods that ripped through large swathes of Victoria, parts of Shepparton are still battling.

Aquamoves Shepparton staff getting ready to tackle to huge job of recovering after flood water damaged the majority of the centre’s fitness facilities. Image: Aquamoves.

Vital community facilities continue to be unusable more than a month after devastating floods rocked Shepparton, while some business might not be able to open for up to 12 months.

With the Herald Sun on site for days in the flood-ravaged town, it can be revealed that weeks later parts of the northern Victorian hub remain impacted by the floods.

“The damage to roads and infrastructure is significant, and some facilities remain closed, including Aquamoves, a child care centre in Mooroopna and the Princess Park Sports Facilities, all of which were underwater for a number of weeks,” A Greater Shepparton City Council spokesperson said.

One of the hardest hit community centres was Aquamoves on Tom Collins Drive.

Flooding damaged the pool’s circulation pumps and all the outdoor areas were inundated with water.

Shepparton council active living manager David Booth said testing of the indoor pool pumps was ongoing.

“The main Aquamoves building was spared from flood water, but it was completely surrounded and the entire indoor pump was inundated, causing damage to all pool water circulation pumps,” he said.

Shepparton swimming centre Aquamoves surrounded by flood water. Image: Aquamoves.

“We are waiting for the pumps to be returned, fitted and tested under full operation. Once it has been established that all pumps are working, the pools will be brought back to temperature slowly so the pool tiles and concrete aren’t damaged.

“The indoor pools and our aquatic programming will then resume as soon as appropriate water temperature and quality is achieved.”

As for outside the main building, Aquamoves was not so lucky.

The outdoor pool at Shepparton swimming centre Aquamoves. Image: Aquamoves.

“The outdoor pools, Splash Park and their pumps, as well as the 50m pool gas boilers were completely inundated with water, which was almost three meters deep,” Mr Booth said.

“Unfortunately the outdoor 50m pool remains full of dirty flood water. The water logged ground around the pool means we are unable to drain it due to the risk of having the entire pool shell pop out of the ground. We will need to wait until the ground has dried out significantly before undertaking this work.”

Internal sections of Aquamoves, including pump area, were impacted in the floods. Image: Aquamoves.

Mr Booth said the centre was looking forward to getting the gym, and group fitness up and running again, but the open date all depended on flood risk.

“The gym is squeaky clean and ready to go and our instructors are looking forward to exercising with everyone again,” he said.

“Unfortunately at this time due to fluctuating river and lake levels, we can’t guarantee that Tom Collins Drive will remain open for safe vehicle and pedestrian access to the centre.”

CFA Shepparton incident controller Ray Jasper, said a rough minimal estimate of volunteer numbers had reached the thousands over the past four weeks.

“It definitely is a small estimate, because we can only capture what comes through our books, but we have sent out 2960 CFA volunteers from incident management teams and ground crews over the last few weeks,” he said.

“We know there was a much higher number of people volunteering and helping out in the community as well.”

Mr Jasper said volunteers had filled more than 300,000 sandbags over the flood period in Shepparton alone.

“Across the region including Euroa, Seymour and Violet Town, 485,000 sandbags were filled by the community alongside our volunteers,” he said.

“But again, our volunteer numbers and stats are definitely underdone.”

Mr Jasper said the CFA had recorded at least 1000 homes in Shepparton with above floor flood damage, not including local businesses and other community infrastructure.

“Our operations are now more relief and recovery based in Shepparton, but there will be businesses unable to reopen for at least 12 months because of the damage,” he said.

The council’s spokesman said KidsTown on the Midlands Hwy also remained closed.

“We set up a Community Recovery Hub a few weeks ago, with a range of services available for those impacted by the floods,” they said.

“The hub has had a good uptake and will transition to a mobile service in the next week or so.”

The spokesperson said secondary impact assessments were still being undertaken, so the overall financial cost for the regional city was not yet known.

Shepparton community director, Louise Mitchell, said the council had been working with a group of local and state organisations to help the community get back on their feet.

“The council is working with a range of local agencies, the Victorian government and local communities on recovery,” she said.

“At the recovery hub, we have been conducting community information sessions, and are enabling impacted residents to access a variety of support and payments via the Flood Recovery Hotline.”

[e-mail]