On Saturday, the suburb recorded 67mm of rain - the highest rainfall in the state.

Metropolitan Fire Brigade and SES units answered dozens of calls in the City of Maribyrnong as rain bucketed down.

The area was also hit by golf ball-sized hailstones.

Shoppers at Highpoint had to retreat from rising water with several stores closed after water leaked into the building.

MFB western zone commander Frank Besanko said firefighters had to help people trapped in a car.

"We had a call about a car floating down the street with people trapped inside, and I looked it up in the Melway thinking it must be near the Maribyrnong [River] or Moonee Ponds Creek, but there was no creek nearby. A whole street had just turned into a river."

Mr Besanko said that in another call-out, Footscray's senior station officer, Damien Burke, managed to stop flooding into a Victoria University property on Ballarat Road by using a classic 'Macgyver' move. "When they got there, water was gushing into the office area, coming in like a river. He put silver duct tape on [the drain pipe] and that stopped it, which was brilliant in the conditions. They looked like drowned rats by the time I got there."

Yesterday, Footscray MFB attended an acid leak at a P&O shipping transport building in Coode Island. Mr Besanko said a worker noticed vapour leaking from a 20-litre drum which resulted in 30 workers being evacuated. The contents of 24 other containers started reacting after being handled.

"One hundred and fifty people are affected in the warehouse today and they can't do any work until the leak is cleaned up."

Clean-up operations were continuing when the Mail went to print.