From suburban Melbourne to regional Victoria — floods this week have caught residents off-guard as waters inundated homes and properties.
Many scrambled to salvage what they could and face an anxious wait to see what will remain when they are allowed to eventually return home.
The state is already facing a housing crisis — for some, this natural disaster will feel like the last straw.
Despite the challenges, the emergency has brought out a fighting community spirit, as neighbours rallied together.
Benalla family flees home of less than a week
Priscilla Rae appeared tired and dazed after spending a sleepless night at the emergency relief centre in Benalla, in Victoria's north-east.
She was forced to pack her dog and three children – including one who is having a birthday within days – into a car and evacuate their home that she'd been in for less than a week.
"I'm pretty much numb. I've got no words. I don't know whether to cry, laugh," she said.
"Just have to stick it out for the kids and hope, fingers crossed, that our house is the only one that doesn't get touched."
Ms Rae said her street was in a higher part of the town and all the surrounding streets were under water when she left.
"We packed up, put everything as high as we could at the top of the house and hope to god it's still there at the end," she said.
Ms Rae said it had been an intense time for her family who finally secured accommodation after being homeless.
"A lot of that's happened since COVID obviously because the rent keeps going up and then you're staying with family and you're applying for house after house after house," she said.
Rochester pub owners dig in
Craig Mann leans against the door of the Criterion Hotel in Rochester, but he's anything but relaxed.
The floodwater is seeping over the footpath towards his pub, where he employs his children as well as his nieces and nephews.
Mr Mann said he was staying put, simply because he couldn't afford to leave.
"We have to save this place because we can't get insurance," Mr Mann said.
"We've got to save it to keep our whole family going, basically."
The pub is not only his business, but his home.
"You can't blame anybody. It's a natural disaster, there's not much you can do about it."
"It's just mother nature at its worst," adds his wife, Teresa.
"But, hey, that's life," Mr Mann said.
An already difficult day was made even more emotional for one Rochester woman, with the floodwaters cutting her off from her sick dog on the day he was set to be put down.
A veterinary surgery walked through floodwaters to give the pair a last few hours together before the dog was euthanised.
"It feels wonderful to see him. The girls have brought him over so I can spend a couple of hours with him to say goodbye," she said.
Treasured possessions likely gone in Seymour
It was impossible for Lynn Morgan to hide her emotions when she described what it was like to see her home under water.
She said she hadn't been worried in the lead-up to the flood because her home wasn't affected by floods that came through the region in 1974.
But she eventually gave in to pressure from her family and left late last night.
"This is my family home, " Ms Morgan said.
"My father built this house and I've lived here most of my life.
"(The water) is in the house this time so it's a bit distressing."
The house had been sandbagged and Ms Morgan was yet to open the front door to see how bad the damage was.
"I did put photos up, they're always the most valuable that you can't replace," she said.
"And there is old furniture that was too heavy to lift up so I don't know what condition it will be in."
She questioned whether the council needed to do flood mitigation work to protect her part of town from Whiteheads Creek.
Maribyrnong locals say flood is the worst they've seen
Andrew Jones estimated he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock at his nursery which sits on the banks of the Maribyrnong River, just around the bend from the flooded Anglers Tavern.
"We've managed to retrieve some but we've got machinery which we couldn't get out quickly enough," Mr Jones said.
"The water just came up so fast."
Staff spent Friday morning moving seedlings, trees and other plants.
"Wherever we're moving it to, the ground is just … the water is just seeping up everywhere."
He said he was devastated by the damage and anxious about what contaminants were in the water.
Mr Jones said the longer it took for the water to recede, the worse it would be for the surviving plants.
"I don't think any amount of warnings would have prepared us for this amount of flooding."
Matthew Iozzi was woken by a text from emergency services at 4am advising him to consider leaving.
Within an hour, police knocked on his door and another text arrived telling him to evacuate.
"It's been pretty shocking because no one in the area has ever considered that something like this would happen," he said.
Mr Iozzi said by the time he had checked on his elderly neighbours, the river was at his doorstep.
"After the last couple of years, we've had fires, we'd had COVID and now there's a flood and the flood has hit so close to a city," he said.
"I'm so proud to be a Melburnian but at the same time I'm now kind of getting over it.
"Over the last couple of years, I don't know about anyone else, but this seems to be like the final straw I think."
Des McGowan was woken by neighbours who were raising the alarm at the Rivervue Retirement Village in Avondale Heights.
"I don't think we've seen anything like this at all and hope we never do again," he said.
His children quickly arrived and completely emptied his house of furniture in case the house was inundated.
"People were up early having to doorknock which is very good. It's a great spirit here," he said.
Mr McGowan said it had been extraordinary watching the water rise.
Axedale locals save property
As floodwaters raged down the Campaspe River, Axedale residents rallied to help their neighbours.
Local resident Mark Allen said about 50 people showed up at his neighbour's property to help sandbag the home and set up water pumps.
"Water was sitting under the level of the door so another half an hour and she would have been going in," Mr Allen said.
"We all got there and got it done."
He said it was scary to see how much water was raging across the nearby bridge and more rain was on the way next week.
"There's going to be a lot more coming out of (Lake) Eppalock, I believe, so we've just got to watch," he said.
