SES reminds residents to avoid river swimming in Mildura

SES reminds residents to avoid popular pastime in Mildura ahead of festive season.

Mildura residents are being asked to avoid a favourite river pastime with flooding expected to continue into the festive season.

The Bureau of Meteorology has Mildura listed as an alert with moderate flooding in the area with a peak expected to be reached later this month.

There is a watch and act alert to avoid the flooded areas around the River Murray including areas downstream of Red Cliffs to Yelta, including Mildura.

Mildura SES Incident Controller Mark Cattel urged residents to avoid using the floodwaters to cool off.

“We know the weather is heating up and over the weekend it is going to be quite warm but we don’t want people swimming anywhere in the river or the flood waters,” he said earlier this week.

“We don’t know what is in the flood waters and it is not the place to swim, there are plenty of other pools around Mildura.”

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There is a forecast reach height of 38.3m for the river next week which has been delayed due to a levee breach in Euston.

With the continued flooding, the emergency services are also concerned about a rise in snake activity in the region.

Earlier: Mildura open for business

Despite significant flooding in parts of the town, Mildura SES hopes to remind tourists they can still visit Mildura and the town “is still here”.

SES Incident controller Mark Cattell said that while you might need to check with individual businesses, tourism in Mildura is still up and running.

It comes after local houseboat businesses said they had already lost more than $400,000 in bookings.

“If people were planning to come up here, they probably just need to check with their accommodation provider to make sure they’re not impacted … tourists are still welcome,” he said.

“What we want to do is try to get an understanding that Mildura is still here tourism is still alive … the river may be impacted but there are still lots of things people can do.”

SES incident controller Mark Cattell says that Mildura is ‘still here’

Just across the border in Gol Gol, Trentham Estate winery manager Anthony Murphy said while flooding wasn’t affecting his business the “scaremongering” was.

“Well [flooding] isn’t, what is impacting it is the messaging that’s going out, it’s got people scared s**tless,” he said.

Mr Murphy assured patrons the winery was still open and would remain that way.

“Most people built on higher banks in NSW your not allowed to build below 56m … it’s not impacting us at all”

As of December 2, the SES maintains the Murray River may reach as high as 38.3m AHD by the middle of next week and the town will see moderate flooding until late December.