Bendigo SES unit controller Jason Hague said some of those who responded locally in the town and Marong were invited to attend the event with the governor of Victoria Linda Dessau AC, deputy premier Jacinta Allan and all defence force chiefs.

Members of the Country Fire Association, Fire Rescue Victoria, Victoria Police and Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority were also in attendance.

"It was a pretty formal sort of occasion and not something you get invited to very often so I wanted to make the most of it," Mr Hague said.

The primary school teacher at Strathfieldsay Primary School, previously at Kennington Primary School, has volunteered with the service for almost 10 years.

"Kids will ask me about it and I tend to be fairly honest about it but I keep the gory details out," he said.

"They're more likely to say we saw you in the truck around town or something like that."

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The Bendigo SES has around 50 members and was particularly busy as the floods began around October 13-14.

In fact Mr Hague said they responded to the largest number of calls he had seen in his time with the SES.

"In the initial response, we got over 300 calls for assistance during those first 48-72 hours," Mr Hague said.

"Obviously we were all hands on deck here for that time and we had probably 40 members out and about and assisting, as well as our support crew catering supported by God knows how many CFA members.

"We had people from all different brigades helping out, teams of people going everywhere."

From that point, Mr Hague explained, as the flooding moved through, a number of local volunteers became involved in the Rochester evacuation.

"As it floated down the riverway we had people doing logistics runs into Mildura and Shepparton just to support everyone, and getting people going to the right places," he said.

"From there we also stepped up to divisional command running directly under the incident control centre."

Mr Hague said SES members had to respond to "far too many" water rescues and hoped people would learn that lesson from the floods.

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"There were too many people driving into water and getting stuck and causing volunteers to have to do that rescue," he said.

"It just wasn't fair, our guys were running from one end of Bendigo to the other.

"So one of our key messages is if it's flooded, forget it.

"Water only needs to be moving at walking pace and it's classed as swift water and can knock people over."

The clean-up continues with most of Rochester's residents still not back in town but staying near Elmore.

"Quite a few of the Rochester SES members' houses were under water as well and that has an ongoing effect there and I think they've only just removed the levy in Echuca," Mr Hague said.

"Bendigo is very different - we'll get water that fills everything really quickly but goes away really quickly too.

"Whereas when you've got that riverine type flooding it will stay around for a long time."

The river remains high areas like Mildura which is only now moving into a recovery phase and even though much of the state has been getting much warmer days, the recovery very much continues.

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"I think the difference with floods and bushfires is that a bushfire attacks an entire house and there's nothing left," Mr Hague said.

"There's a flood and your house is still there, everything you own is still there, it's just horrible and black and moldy.

"I suppose people don't necessarily associate a flood with people losing everything but that is what happens."

This is far from the first natural disaster our local SES crews have attended.

Previously the Bendigo unit was heavily involved in Black Saturday in 2009, and although that was prior to Mr Hague's service he has since provided assistance during the Black Summer bushfires 2019-2020.

"In 2019 I did a stint up in Corryong to support the road rescue capability over there because obviously a lot of their members were fire affected," he said.

"Also in 2019 I did a stint down in Bairnsdale providing air rescue support, road rescue capability based on a helicopter."

Volunteers include those who work in mining, geology, teaching, engineering, truck driving, health and disability care - and there is always room for more to help out.

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