Heavy rain is predicted to hammer the mid-north coast of New South Wales until Friday morning, with “prolonged major flooding” expected tocause more difficulty and anguish for almost 50,000 peopleisolated by rising flood waters.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) senior meteorologist, Dean Narramore, said that any intense rainfall could lead to localised deadly flooding.
A severe weather warning of heavy to locally intense rainfall extended from Evans Head to Forster, including the flood-affected communities of Taree, Port Macquarie, Kempsey and Grafton, the bureau said..
The bureau late on Wednesday afternoon said that a further 100mm to 200mm of rainfall was expected in those areas, which would likely lead to prolonged major flooding and increase flooding on many rivers in the upper Hunter and the mid north-coast.
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Helen Holliday runs a medical practice with her husband in the centre of Taree.
On Wednesday it was too early to assess whether it had been affected by flood waters because the roads into town were inaccessible.
“We did the best we could, sandbagged, but the power had to be turned off, so we’ve lost all of our vaccines,” Holliday said.
With the practice’s systems down, she said the doctors were not able to work.
“It’s just really frustrating when the community needs you and people are so stressed,” she said.
Holliday said on Tuesday night many local businesses had evacuated, with some shops moving their stock to higher ground. She said some cafes and restaurants that had been helping community members by providing free meals had since flooded.
The NSW State Emergency Service on Wednesday said more than 48,800 people and 23,200 dwellings had been cut off by flood waters.
The SES had made 400 rescues since the flooding hit.
The majority of the rescues were in Taree, Wingham and Glenthorne. Forty flood rescue teams were working between the Hunter and Coffs Harbour, with helicopters, boats and ground crew supporting operations, the SES said.
Much of the mid-north coast has been deluged with two-day totals of between 200 and 400mm, which had led to major flooding, Narramore said on Wednesday.
SES flood rescue teams on Wednesday were going door-to-door checking on residents whose homes had been isolated, Dean Storey, the SES assistant commissioner, said. Anyone trapped should call triple-zero, he said.
Storey said more evacuations were expected between Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour, particularly around Kempsey.
“We are asking people in these high-risk areas not to wait until it’s too late – know what you will do if you do need to leave, and immediately follow the advice of emergency services,” he said.
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NSW SES state duty commander, Colin Malone, told the ABC on Wednesday evening that there were 25 emergency warnings in place, out of a total of 121 warnings, as well as 64 watch and acts. He urged residents to leave early.
“Don’t wait to be told to get out. If you can go early … that’d be amazing, because that means … if we have to trigger an evacuation during the night, which we don’t like doing … people are ready and there’s less people.”
Malone said 24 people had to be rescued after driving through flood waters, which made rescues particularly challenging.
“Where we’re going to the rescues where somebody made that choice to drive through flood water, which we always will do, we’re tying up a resource that could be going to help somebody in their house or in another location.”
Holliday said areas including Taree South and the suburb of Purfleet were “a disaster” and “everyone in town will know someone who has lost everything”.
“How much does it take for people to understand that we have a climate emergency?” she said.
“We’re going to have to work to try to mitigate this. It’s going to happen across Australia more and more, we’re going to see these huge events.”
On Wednesday, the Manning river surpassed its 1929 record flood level.
The CEO of Natural Hazards Research Australia, Andrew Gissing, said the record breaking flooding along the Manning river had an estimated frequency of occurrence of one in 500 years on average.
“Though it is too early to know the extent that climate change has contributed to the extreme rainfalls, we do know that under a warmer climate that our atmosphere holds more water and that heavy rain events are more likely,” he said.
Evacuation centres have been opened at:
Dungog RSL Club
Club Gloucester
Club Taree
Manning Point Bowling Club
Wingham RSL
Bulahdelah Golf Club
Tuncurry Beach Bowling Club
Kempsey Showground
Panthers Port Macquarie