'Never seen anything like it': Businesses begin clean-up after severe storm

Mark Shepherd, co-owner of Wang's Best Bakery on Vincent Road said, that in his 54 years, he had never seen a storm do so much damage to so many businesses.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "The wind and rain were coming in sideways.

"We came in to check out the bakery and there was water all over the floor, water coming down the inside of the walls and out the light fittings.

"We had to drill holes in the roof to let the water escape because there was that much rain, it couldn't escape down the drain pipes, and every business on Vincent Road was in the same situation."

The thunderstorms struck on Tuesday, January 2, with one round between 4.20pm and 4.50pm and another between 7pm and 8.30pm.

The Bureau of Meteorology reported wind gusts of 104km/h at the airport at 4.34pm, with the later storm producing gusts around 60km/h.

In the 24 hours to 9am on Wednesday, Wangaratta Airport reported 54.4mm of rainfall. Of that, 37mm fell between 7pm and 8pm, and 24.5mm fell in the 15 minutes between 7:18pm and 7:33pm.

"I've been a baker for a long, long time, and that's the worst bit of rain that's affected a business I've been involved in that I've ever seen," Mr Shepherd said.

Cameron Gray, owner of North VIC Caravans on Norton Street, said the flood water got up to half a metre on his property.

"It was near monsoonal style rain - it was unbelievable how quickly it came down," he said.

"Our yard flooded and we had about half a metre of water coming up in the shed.

"So we had to pull a few vans out pretty quickly so we wouldn't lose them, but the sheds and our main workshop copped a fair bit of water damage and bit of debris through it."

The SES Wangaratta Unit received 82 assistance requests on Tuesday between 3pm and midnight.

These included 18 requests for trees over roads, eight for trees on property, 18 for building damage and 30 for flood damage.

Victoria SES said crews were back out Wednesday morning, completing the few remaining jobs that couldn't be completed on Tuesday night.

Wang's Best Bakery will reopen on Thursday, January 4.