The situation in Wye River

Gardner said she didn’t have time to be scared, and quickly waded through the water to get to dry ground on the hill by the Wye River campground.

“You just sort of go into adrenaline action mode,” she said. “When we got up to safety, and I just watched my car just drifting away, that’s when it started to hit and I went ‘OK, how am I going to get home? How am I going to get safe and dry?’”

Locals helped shuttle Gardner and her friends to the bridge, and they walked across to shelter in the pub before spending the night in a resident’s home. Now, she has to work out what happens to her car.

“We managed to get out to the car and salvage anything that was inside it, but the car is just completely destroyed,” she said. “I don’t quite know what happens with it now and how it gets out of the water, but I guess that’s the next step that I’ve got to deal with.”

A large section of the Great Ocean Road remained closed on Friday afternoon until further notice, as authorities assessed the damage on a key bridge along the tourist attraction.

Some 175 millimetres of rain was recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology at the Mount Cowley station near Lorne in six hours on Thursday and 186.2 millimetres in the 24 hours to 9am on Friday – the most rain ever recorded at the site.

The bureau’s hazard preparedness and response manager Diana Eadie described the flooding as an “extraordinary rainfall event”. She said the first severe storm warning for a risk of heavy rain and flash flooding was issued at 11.57am.

A weather bureau spokesman told this masthead that alert came after 45 millimetres of rain had fallen in one hour at Mount Cowley about 11am.

Warnings were then escalated to the potential for life-threatening flash flooding at 12.40pm, and the SES also issued its own Watch and Act warning for the area. Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch defended the timing of the warnings as “adequate”.

“We do believe that the warnings were adequate for what was needed at that point in time, and were as timely as can be when you have that dynamic situation that thunderstorms bring,” Wiebusch told reporters on Friday.

He said the first Triple Zero call about flooding at a caravan park occurred at 1.08pm, while the first call about cars being washed away came 12 minutes later.

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One child was injured in the emergency, flown out of the flood zone and taken to hospital.

“We understand that the young child may have climbed onto the roof of one of the buildings inside the caravan park,” Wiebusch said.

Victorian Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos said the flooding was “unexpected” and that the Bureau of Meteorology hadn’t predicted the force of the floods.

“The scenes at Wye River and the Great Ocean Road were just terrifying,” he said. “It felt very unexpected. Over 160 millimetres of rain – it was extraordinary.”

When asked if people in the area were given adequate warning of the flash flooding, Dimopoulos said it was a question for emergency services.

Multiple people had to be rescued including one man who was winched to safety from the roof of a shed and another from a hilltop around the Cumberland River, while a police officer was dropped in by helicopter to guide four hikers, including an 88-year-old with a dog.

The exact number of cars swept out to sea and damaged by water is unknown but Wiebusch said he believed it was at least 20.

Matthew Stanhope, who has camped at Wye River for 20 years, said he had never seen anything like Thursday’s floods.

“It was raining, we were all in the tent playing cards with the gang, then we heard shouting,” Stanhope said.

“It was a few seconds, that was it,” he said. “It was lightning fast and quiet too, there’s no noise, just all of a sudden the water is up.”

He patiently waiting for low tide on Friday so he could walk out to his car – which was swept out to sea in the flash flooding – and retrieve some belongings.

In Lorne, the bridge across the Erskine River which divides the town reopened on Friday, and the clean-up was under way with an excavator removing debris from the river.

Dean and Tracy Sheldrick and their three children were staying at the Lorne Foreshore Caravan Park in their camper trailer on holidays from Bendigo when the flooding began.

“We saw the river start to come up quite rapidly, and then the park staff came running through the camp saying that everyone needs to evacuate,” Dean Sheldrick said. “It was probably about 10 minutes before we got our stuff together and in that time we were in ankle deep water.”

Tracy Sheldrick said the situation quickly progressed from “that river’s going a bit fast” to “we’ve got to get out of here”.

After they were evacuated, the family stayed overnight at the Mantra hotel in Lorne and have been waiting at the entrance to the caravan park for it to reopen so they could retrieve their camping trailer and possessions.

“We just want to go home,” Tracy Sheldrick said.

There were 229 calls for assistance statewide in the 24 hours to midday on Friday, State Control Centre spokeswoman Dharni Giri said.

A reduced flash flood warning was issued by the SES overnight, with a caution that hazards remain in the area.

Locals and holidaymakers can access properties through traffic management checkpoints.

“Caravan parks are likely to remain closed in that area for the next few days, while we work through the response to some of the debris and damage that has been caused,” Giri said.

“We are asking community to remain vigilant that heavy rainfall has increased the potential for landslips and debris across roads.”

There are two emergency relief centres along the coast, but capacity is limited.

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At the Lorne centre, dozens of families who had been evacuated clustered inside on Friday – just days after people fleeing bushfires sought shelter there.

Surf Coast Shire Mayor Libby Stapleton said only about four people had to stay there overnight because everyone else was able to find accommodation elsewhere.

Many of those evacuated stayed at the Lorne Surf Lifesaving Club, which housed around 40 people, and residents also opened up their homes to those with nowhere to stay.

“The community has been incredible,” Stapleton said.

Miriam Bradbury, a senior meteorologist at the weather bureau, said that while most rain had fallen on Thursday, people in the flood-affected areas needed to be mindful of the heavily saturated grounds in coming days.

“We could see patchy showers in the area today, down that surf coast, but rainfall totals are not expected to be anywhere near as high as what we saw yesterday,” she said.

“The main thing for campers and communities in that area is that the ground is still really, really saturated and really unstable after yesterday, when so much rain has fallen in a short space of time, and that’s what led to these landslips, as well as the flash flooding. It is still a day to be mindful and to be cautious.”