AMONG the first people in Wangaratta to be evacuated as floodwaters hit were residents at Painters Island caravan park, near the centre of the town's busy shopping strip and gardens.
Rachel Downie, whose family runs the caravan park, said she came home from netball and the park was flooded. ''It's rising pretty quick,'' she said. ''My parents are in there at the moment trying to get stuff out.''
Her parents were later evacuated from the caravan park by the SES, after they got stranded.
''Water is in the house so they are gathering up everything that they can,'' Ms Downie said.
About 40 houses were evacuated in Wangaratta, most of them to the west of the town where police feared a levee on Wilsons Road might crumble. Only four people in the homes in this section of town elected to stay put.
Residents with nowhere to stay last night were being sent to a community centre.
Both the King and Ovens rivers are expected to keep rising today and Tuesday. In Benalla, where about 100 people were evacuated on Saturday night, the river had fallen by 1.5 metres over the course of Sunday. The sewage plant at Benalla had also flooded, and residents in the town were being advised to boil water before drinking it.
Myrtleford was not reachable on Sunday night by the Great Alpine Road. There, about 15 people were evacuated from threatened homes, and some were expected to stay in one of the town's hotels. In Bright, no homes were flooded, but the Ovens River was increasingly rapidly. Houses in Harrietville and Hotham were also cut off.
Near Milawa, Nathan Parker was inspecting his family's property, on the banks of the King River. The river, which runs through his parents' property, was far wider than usual he said. ''When it's not flooding it'd be five metres wide,'' he said. ''Now it's about a kilometre wide.''
Mr Parker, who lives in Milawa, said the 1993 floods had been far worse than this weekend's. ''It was a metre over the road then,'' he said, speaking from the side of the road, which was being lapped by the King River's rising waters.
The flood did not yet look like it would have severe impacts on many properties in the area, he said. And Mr Parker's family shifted its cattle off the property last week, because of warnings the flood was coming.
Mr Parker said the attention being heaped upon the floods was ''completely over the top''.
''This kind of a flood, it's just a media hype, but most of us who have been around here long enough just think this is normal,'' he said.
''I figure the media has got sick of politics right now and it's rained so let's talk about floods.''
Speaking in nearby Wangaratta on Sunday afternoon, Premier John Brumby said he expected the floodwaters in the area to peak during today and Tuesday. ''We have seen moderate to severe flooding,'' Mr Brumby said.
''It remains to be seen if rainfall later in the week adds [to the flooding].'' Mr Brumby said floods like these were ''part of life''.
The State Emergency Service's north-east floods incident controller, Keith O'Brien, said the region, and Benalla in particular, had not been hit as hard as expected. But he said the waters were moving towards Shepparton.
''It is looking like by late Monday, the Bureau [of Meteorology] is advising we might go on to the major flood range in Shepparton,'' Mr O'Brien said.
On Sunday about 150 SES volunteers were in and around the towns of Euroa, Benalla, Wangaratta and Myrtleford.
The floods in this region of north-east Victoria are not expected to be as severe as those of 1993, an SES report issued around 7pm yesterday showed.
But the flood was expected to mirror the last major one in 1998.
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