Daily London
The Great Ocean Road was closed in both directions between Lorne and Skenes Creek for several hours this morning to allow for the safe removal of flood-impacted cars from beaches and rivers.
A Black Hawk helicopter was seen winching damaged cars from the beach and the mouths of the Cumberland and Wye Rivers.
“There were around a dozen vehicles, some on the rocks, some in the ocean, some on the beach and we had an expert salvage team come in and supported us in terms of extricating those by helicopter,” SES Victorian operations manager Chris Longmore said.
A dozen vehicles and caravan chassis were retrieved from Cumberland River and two were removed from Wye River, Longmore said.
One caravan chassis was unable to be extricated and remains buried under sand at Cumberland River.
“We’ll work with local land managers around what they would like to do around further recovery if that’s a viable option,” Longmore said.
Most of the extricated vehicles were dropped in the car park of the Cumberland River Holiday Park and have since been taken to a car yard, where owners can make further assessments.
Families were forced to scramble to higher ground as cars and caravans were swept out to sea by fast-moving rapids.
The recovery effort was supported by a marine salvage crew who helped rig and secure the vehicles to be hoisted.
Longmore said authorities liaised with traditional owners and local land managers to decide how to extricate the vehicles.
”We looked at a range of options in terms of how to best recover those vehicles… we looked at sea we looked at land and we looked at air,” Longmore said.
“Air was deemd the gratest option due to our ability to impact as least as possible the land and the ocean environment that exists here at Cumberland River and Wye River.”
The Great Ocean Road has since reopened to traffic.
