From her cotton farm on the Newell Highway about 13km north of Moree, Dimity Smith watched with growing relief as the flood waters, which only a few hours earlier had threatened to overwhelm the levee bank protecting the property, began to recede.
“Last night was really scary,” she told the Guardian on Thursday as she watched the water rush past in northern New South Wales.
“My partner and I came out at 10pm and thought we were fine but then we saw the water had come right to the top of the levy, which is about 1.5 metres, and thought, far out, this is a bit close for comfort.”
From about lunchtime on Monday, Smith says the property was hit with 160mm of rain in 24 hours. It was, she said, more than the property had seen in the past two years.
Thank heavens - it hasn’t gone any higher than this but I never once thought I’d wake up to water views of the #NewellHighway in #Moree 😂! All safe, surveying damage now but thank god it didn’t get over the levy bank!! Long night! 😫 #Moree #NSWFloods pic.twitter.com/vlFsS7ck1O
— Dimity Smith (@smithdimity) March 24, 2021
Smith, who is originally from the Hunter Valley, had seen floods before, but the speed the water flowed into the paddocks when the nearby Gwydir River broke its banks took her by surprise. “It’s just crazy,” she said. “It just all happened very quickly.”
But, like most farmers in this region of NSW, they were well prepared. Floods, like drought, were an expected part of the landscape and most people on the land had been waiting for the next big one. “That’s the kind of place Moree is,” Smith said.
An evacuation order for low-lying properties in Moree was still in place on Thursday evening after dozens of homes were inundated by a rush of flood water, which peaked at 10.4 metres after dawn on Thursday.
The town was cut in two when the Mehi River broke its banks, and three people had a close call after they fell into a sinkhole that emerged in the flood waters.
#Moree now cut in two. #NSWFloods pic.twitter.com/YoSFHDIp68
— Heath Stimson (@Heath_Stimson) March 24, 2021
The trio had been watching the flood on Wednesday night when the sinkhole opened beneath them and they had to be rescued by a Fire and Rescue NSW crew.
The mayor, Katrina Humphries, said the town was “busted but still breathing” after the inundation.
“On Monday night, we had between 150 and 180mm of rain on the hills [outside town] and that just came in very, very quickly,” she said.
“We were pretty well organised but the problem with this flood was the behaviour of the water. It was the flood of the great unknown because we thought we had more time than we did before it hit.
“We had huge volumes of water and it’s all obviously flowed west and into our main waterways but also a lot into smaller riverbeds that don’t usually flow and you wouldn’t even think of them.”
As the water begins to recede in Moree, Humphries said the focus would be on helping people whose homes had been damaged to begin the cleanup; as well as the smaller communities further west which would likely see the same water in coming days.
Sitting steady here pic.twitter.com/lL7r4mxJaN
— Andrew Uphill (@AndrewUphill) March 24, 2021
“There’s a lot of communities further out west that we’re trying to get bread and milk to, we’re still in full flood mode even while we start to think about the cleanup,” she said.
“We’re talking about farms where people live but it’s also their livelihood, then you’ve got little communities that just be a school and a shop.”
More than a dozen evacuation orders remained in place across NSW on Thursday evening, and about 60,000 people were still on standby to evacuate, with major flood warnings in place for the Macintyre, Gwydir, Clarence, Hawkesbury, Nepean and Colo rivers.
There was still significant flooding along a number of rivers but the focus had turned to the northern rivers region – particularly Grafton, Maclean and Ulmarra. Eighty-nine schools remained closed across the state.
As weather conditions eased across NSW, about 3,000 were able to return to their homes across the state, with tens of thousands still displaced.
With much of the focus on the cleanup in heavily hit parts of the state, including the mid-north coast and parts of north-west Sydney, the state emergency services minister, David Elliott, warned on Thursday the threat remained in many areas.
“This rain may have gone away but what happened is of course all the tributary, all the streams, all the rivers that lead into these large waterways are still full and they’re still pushing water downstream,” Elliott said.
“What we see now is that sewerage has overflowed. What we see is snakes and spiders are in some of those areas. What we see now is the debris needs to be cleaned up very quickly, and then we still have to resupply a lot of communities.”
In Queensland, the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, sent her condolences to the family of 38-year-old David Hornman, whose body was found inside his upturned ute in a flooded creek near Lamington national park on Wednesday morning.
“Our weather can be cruel and conditions can change in an instant,” she said.
Hornman had been reported missing on Monday and a police investigation into his death centres on the Coburg Road causeway, which crosses Canungra Creek inland from the Gold Coast. Hornman was last seen leaving his father’s house nearby on Monday morning and his wife had spent the past two days pleading for information on social media.
“I just have to know he’s OK. Please tell him no matter what I LOVE HIM,” Angela Hornman wrote, saying he left for work on Monday but never made it.
Palaszczuk warned Queenslanders the danger was not over as water continued to make its way through flooded areas. “Flood warnings are current for a number of Queensland creeks and rivers and storms are forecast between Townsville and Cairns,” she said.
Several flood warnings remained in place on Thursday and the Bureau of Meteorology hydrologist Sue Oates said the southern inland town of Goondiwindi would see flood levels peak on Thursday afternoon.
The Australia Defence Force has begun to assist the recovery effort, flying in essential supplies to isolated communities, particularly North Richmond, and taking part in damage assessments.
“As soon as the all-clear has been given, we’ll assist with those SES-led teams in assisting with the cleanup,” Brigadier Mick Garraway said on Thursday.
