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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Calla Wahlquist

Rain lashes east coast causing flash floods and fallen trees – as it happened

A tree has fallen across the entrance to a few terrace houses in Hargrave Street, Paddington
A fallen tree in front of houses in Paddington. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

We’re going to close up the live blog for the night. We’ll continue our reporting on the east coast storms and floods in the morning.

You can find the latest updates related to your region on the NSW Bureau of Meteorology and NSW State Emergency Service websites.

Thanks to everyone who contributed stories, photos and videos about the impacts of the floods. Stay safe everyone.

Thanks to @Stilgherrian for letting us know that it’s reportedly Leura not Katoomba.

Updated

Summary

Let’s take a look back at how the devastating storms that have ripped through the east coast of Australia unfolded today.

  • Sydney, the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains were soaked by between 200 and 400mm of rain from 9am Friday to 5pm Sunday.
  • Residents in low-lying areas near the Narrabeen Lagoon in northern Sydney, along with people in Moorebank, Chipping Norton and Milperra, have been ordered to evacuate by the NSW State Emergency Service.
  • The SES says flooding along the Hawkesbury River could disrupt gas and water deliveries to the northwest Sydney towns of Richmond and Windsor.
  • Emergency services have been swamped with calls since the deluge set in on Friday, while the extreme weather has caused transport chaos across Sydney.
  • NSW Maritime says a number of boats have been sunk by the turbulent conditions at sea.
  • Four people were hospitalised on Sunday afternoon after a tree fell on their car in the Sydney CBD.
  • A 16-year-old boy was taken to hospital with suspected broken ribs after he was trapped between debris in waist-deep water for two hours in the Hunter region.
  • Utility company Ausgrid says more than 77,000 customers have lost electricity across Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle, while Endeavour Energy says a further 26,000 customers are without power in Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Southern Highlands regions.
  • A severe weather warning was issued on Sunday for the entire coast of NSW, and will remain in place on Monday.
  • The Bureau of Meteorology says the deluge could cause “life-threatening flash flooding” in the Hunter region, the Central Coast, greater Sydney, Illawarra and the Blue Mountains.
  • In happier news, parched dams around Sydney, including the major Warragamba Dam, are swelling to their highest levels in years.
  • The town of Warwick in southern Queensland had two years worth of drinking water flow into its dam.
  • Emergency services in Western Australia have issued an all clear for areas of the Pilbara affected by cyclone Damien.

Updated

This is a good reminder of how quickly the weather has changed in some areas.

Narrabeen Sports High has announced it will be closed tomorrow due to flooding in the area. It said in the statement that other schools in the area will also be closed at the request of the SES.

NSW SES has issued an evacuation order for Narrabeen Lagoon. It is directing people within Narrabeen Lagoon to evacuate the high danger area using Pittwater Road or Ocean Street by 10.30pm.

The affected area is all properties surrounding Narrabeen Lagoon, from Wakehurst Parkway, Narrabeen bordered by The Esplanade, west of Pittwater Road from Goodwin St to Albert Street then along Lagoon St to Octavia St, properties west of Lisle St, including low-lying properties of Emerald St and Malcom St, Walsh Street west of Pittwater Rd towards Warriewood Rd along Macpherson St down Garden St to Pittwater Rd including low-lying properties of Nareen Pde, Gondola Rd, Rickard Rd, Windsor Pde and Bristol Ln.

1. Residents should relocate personal possessions to a safe place.

2. By 10:30pm, leave the high danger area and move to safety within the Narrabeen Lagoon.

Once floodwater [reaches] 2.4m Pittwater Road will be cut. If you remain in the area after 10:30pm you will be trapped without power, water and other essential services and it may be too dangerous to rescue you. This flood will be higher than the 2016 flood of the Narrabeen Lagoon.

More information is available here.

More reports of fallen trees on the northern beaches.

And another look at the tree that fell on a car in the Sydney CBD earlier today, landing its four passengers on hospital – thankfully in stable conditions.

SES issues flood evacuation orders

The State Emergency Service has issued a flood evacuation order for Moorebank, Chipping Norton and Milperra residents, who are being told to evacuate immediately.

The affected area is all properties on Arthur Street (off Rickard Road), Rickard Road, Davy Robinson Drive and Newbridge Road between Milperra Bridge and Riverside Road.

Residents should leave the high danger area towards Liverpool, the SES says.

More information is available on the SES website.

Updated

Some very important safety advice here from Fire and Rescue NSW for people who have chemicals stored in sheds that are in danger of flooding.

Here’s what it looks like in Narrabeen on Sydney’s northern beaches, which was issued with a flood evacuation warning a couple of hours ago. (You can read the full evacuation warning notice here).

There are lots of homes without power this evening.

AAP reports that utility companies are rushing to restore power in swamped regions, with more than 100,000 customers without electricity at one point on Sunday.

Utility company Ausgrid says more than 77,000 customers have lost electricity across Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle.

Endeavour Energy says a further 26,000 customers are without power in Sydney, the Blue Mountains and southern highlands regions.

“Crews are reporting extensive damage after very strong winds brought down power lines in many areas,” Endeavour Energy said.

Updated

A flood evacuation warning has also been issued for Hawkesbury River at North Richmond Lowlands:

As a result of the flood level predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology for North Richmond Lowlands at 4:30pm 9th February, residents within the areas listed below should prepare to evacuate within the next 4 hours.

The warning area covers all properties bounded by the Hawkesbury River, Brahma Road to rear of Poor Clares property, Douglas Street to Bells Line of Road at Redbank Creek.

Residents should monitor the situation and be prepared to evacuate when instructed to do so. An Evacuation Order will be issued by the NSW SES if evacuation is required.

Updated

The State Emergency Service has issued flood evacuation warnings for low-lying areas of Narrabeen in northern Sydney.

“Heavy rainfall is resulting in the Narrabeen Lagoon to rise quickly. There will be another high tide tonight at 10:45pm where you may become trapped without power, water and other essential services and it may be too dangerous for NSW SES to rescue you,” the warning says.

The advice right now is for residents to monitor the situation and be prepared to evacuate when instructed to do so. An Evacuation Order will be issued by the NSW SES if evacuation is required.

According to the SES website residents within the areas listed below should prepare to evacuate:

  • All residents of Wimbeldon Ave
  • Residents on Nareen Parade between Narroy Road and Pittwater Road
  • Low-lying areas of Waterloo Street
  • All residents of Verona Street
  • Residents on Gondola Road between Verona Street and Pittwater Road
  • Residents on Garden Street between Jackson Road and Pittwater Road
  • Residents on Darius Ave between Lake Park Road and Parukala Place
    Residents on Lake Park Road
  • Sydney Academy of Sport and Recreation on Wakehurst Parkway

You can find more information here.

Updated

We’ve had trains – now planes. The weather has led to a lot of waiting about in the skies apparently.

Updated

More rail misery ahead for commuters tomorrow:

Updated

Back to Sydney and the dam levels. According to Sydney Water, the biggest dam out there – the Warragamba – has seen a rise in its levels of nearly 1% over the past week. Not sure how up to date that figure is (within the past few hours or the past day) but it shows the effect of this torrential rain.

The level of the Warragamba dam - Sydney Water reports it has increased by nearly 1%
The level of the Warragamba dam: Sydney Water reports it has increased by nearly 1%. Photograph: Sydney Water

Updated

Earlier in this blog we heard about a landslide in the Katoomba area and how one local resident, Charly Race, alerted police to the train track being suspended in mid-air. Well NSW Trainlink West has just put this tweet out showing a pretty scary situation.

Updated

More good news for drought-stricken areas of Queensland. AAP reports that in the state’s south-east corner six dams and weirs are officially over capacity:

While the six dams and weirs are some of the region’s smallest, they provide plenty of optimism for the region.

Four of the dams are either located in or supply a drought-declared local government area: Leslie Harrison Dam, Litter Nerang Dam, Six Mile Creek and Wappa Dam.

The overflowing Leslie Harrison Dam, which supplies Redland City south of Brisbane, was recorded at 76% capacity on Friday.

The region’s two largest dams, Wivenhoe and Somerset, both had increases of about 1% over the weekend.

The overall dam level in south-east Queensland has increased by nearly 1% after heavy rain over the weekend.

South-east Queensland’s water grid total sits at 57.2% following the weekend downpour.

The main drinking supply for the Gold Coast, Hinze Dam, has reached 88.7% capacity from 86.3% before the weekend.

Updated

We’ve seen lot’s of rain today, but there’s more on the way. You can keep up to date with weather warnings current in your area on the Bureau of Meteorology website:

Injuries reported from fallen trees and floodwaters

Several people have been taken to hospital in New South Wales today as a result of trees falling on cars and from becoming trapped in flood waters.

AAP reports:

Four people were hospitalised on Sunday afternoon after a tree fell on their car in the Sydney CBD.

“This wet and windy weather is really wreaking havoc on our roads today, with paramedics responding to five car accidents every hour since Friday night,” NSW Ambulance spokesman Giles Buchanan said.

“We’ve responded to multiple trees that had fallen onto cars, trees into houses and units, and people trapped in cars in flood waters.”

A 16-year-old boy has been taken to hospital with suspected broken ribs after he was trapped between debris in waist-deep water for two hours in the Hunter region.

The teen was rescued by emergency services after falling into Allyn River while canoeing at about 9am on Sunday.

Updated

Commiserations to Canberra and other parts of the east coast that have missed this rain.

Updated

Sydney is not the only place that’s flooded.

This is in Brisbane.

But also, Sydney is very much flooded.

It is good weather for frogs, and very good weather for participating in a spot of citizen science by downloading the Frog ID app.

As a bonus, you will be able to smugly identify your local frogs to your friends, if that’s the kind of thing that your friends find impressive.

And if it’s not, frankly, get new friends.

More from that heavy flooding on Sydney’s northern beaches.

Car driving through flooded road at Palm Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches
Car driving through a flooded road at Palm Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches. Photograph: Caitlin Medley
Another car driving through flooded road at Palm Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches
Another car driving through the flooded road at Palm Beach. Photograph: Caitlin Medley

Updated

‘A lot of people could have been hurt’

In the Blue Mountains there has been some dramatic scenes with what appears to be part of the railway line at Katoomba suffering a landslip, leaving rails exposed and, according to one witness, hanging in the air.

Charly Race was at her home that borders the track with her two-year-old daughter and mother, Chauntelle Dowd.

Charly told Guardian Australia:

It was quite a loud noise. My mum heard it – she came out running and screaming. We then saw all the mud coming through the backyard.

A bollard that was holding up the track has come out. There is nothing holding them up. You can see them – there’s nothing under them.

Charly said she called the police who appear to have immediately stopped any trains from crossing the area.

The police came and they realised that the train tracks are exposed. Luckily we called the cops when we did otherwise a lot of people could have been hurt.

She said her roads had been cut off by the storm and now they were looking at cleaning up after the landslide.

It is still flowing down. It has taken out the backyard of our neighbours.

We weren’t expecting this on a Sunday afternoon.

Guardian Australia still hasn’t received a response from Transport for NSW.

Updated

While we’re thinking about the impact on wildlife, we’ve had a report from Marcia Church who lives with her husband on a small acreage at Tuncurry on the mid-north coast.

They were surrounded on three sides by bushfires from October to December and have been on level four water restrictions since December. Marcia was collecting shower water in a bucket to water the birds.

But now they’re soaking – 274.5mm of rain between 9am Wednesday and 9am Sunday, and about half of that fell last night. Roads that were cut by bushfires late last year have now been flooded out.

And, sadly, the rain too has affected the birds. This morning Marcia found a small sea bird, later identified as a tern with its closest breeding colony on Lord Howe Island, which is 620km offshore.

She took the bird to her local wildlife rescue volunteer and apparently wasn’t the only one – Fawna, the network of wildlife rescuers in mid-north NSW, has received reports of confused seabirds from Port Macquarie to Newcastle “all exhausted from being blown so far off course from their home at Lord Howe island”, Marcia says.

She adds:

They are swamped with calls for wildlife rescues ... firstly from bushfires, now with the torrential rains ... extremely sad, isn’t it?

Updated

Be careful if you’re walking or driving around Sydney and the central coast today. Trees are falling all over the place.

Here’s a tree that crushed a car at Macquarie Place Park on the corner of Loftus and Bridge streets in the Sydney CBD.

And another, in a carpark in western Sydney.

And while we’re in western Sydney, this storm drain in Canterbury looks like a whitewater rafting course. Do not under any circumstances use it as a whitewater rafting course or enter the water in any way – you heard the SES.

Updated

We’re looking into reports that a mudslide has impacted train tracks near Leura in the Blue Mountains. Here’s a video from a resident showing damage to their neighbour’s backyard, with the train tracks in the background. We’ve sent it to Transport NSW and will let you know their response.

Transport NSW travel alerts say the Blue Mountains line is not running between Katoomba and Mount Victoria due to a fallen tree in overhead wires at Blackheath.

The Blue Mountains mayor, Mark Greenhill, said he had one report of a landslide in Leura earlier this morning, but not affecting the train track. A “substantial land slip” was reported at Cliff Drive, which will be closed for further notice because of the volume of mud and debris on the road.

Parts of the Blue Mountains have received up to 200mm of rain in 24 hours.

You may recall Mark because we spoke to him a lot in December, during the height of the Gospers Mountain fire. Now he’s dealing with landslides and floods.

All clear issued for Karratha following tropical cyclone Damien

Emergency services in Western Australia have issued an all clear for areas of the Pilbara affected by cyclone Damien, meaning that residents who were sheltering in their homes in Karratha, Roebourne and Dampier are now allowed to go outdoors.

The area is still under a blue alert, so people are advised to show caution when moving around outdoors.

Heavy rain has caused localised flooding, and there are flash-flooding warnings in place for much of the Pilbara and northern Gascoyne.

The cyclone will continue to weaken as it moves inland.

Updated

‘From drought to flood in a day’

This photo is of Narribri train station, 521km northwest of Sydney. Last week it was in an area of NSW that was severely affected by drought. Today, it’s a lake.

The local fire and rescue unit has been called to help people stranded in rising floodwaters. They rescued 14 people and a number of animals on Saturday. It is, as you can see, a bit wet.

The Narrabri SES unit says the town has gone “from drought to flood in a day”.

Updated

We’re seeing reports that Manly Dam is overflowing, after a year of being almost empty.

Well this is just the absolute best.

They don’t just fight fires.

And a reminder to watch your kids and pets (and yourself!) around storm drains.

Suburbs around Manly and the Northern Beaches in Sydney are among the most affected. Access to Palm Beach has been cut off due to a tree fallen over the road.

This was the scene at Dover Heights earlier.

And Manly this morning.

The Manly ferry service has been cancelled, for understandable reasons. Commuters are advised to catch a bus.

And a bit further north at Dee Why.

More reports of damage and flooding in Sydney.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned of flash flooding in northern Sydney over the next few hours.

The BOM is also warning of minor to moderate flooding in the Hawkesbury, Nepean, Manning, Colo, and Cooks Rivers, as well as Tuggerah and Wallis Lakes.

Further north, the Manning River Valley on the mid-north coast and northern tablelands has received 350mm of rain, or 14 inches in old money.

Meanwhile, in northern NSW, the dams are filling.

Updated

Always good when the radar goes yellow.

Collaroy is one of the areas at risk of coastal erosion over the next two days, the Bureau of Meteorology’s manager of weather services for NSW and the Australian Capital Territory, Jane Golding, told reporters at a press conference in Sydney earlier.

A king tide today caused localised flooding, and there’s another king tide scheduled for tomorrow. Waves offshore are 5m, cresting to 8m. That’s according to buoys in the harbour, but apparently the buoy near Collaroy has broken its mooring in the rough seas.

Collaroy was one of the areas worst affected by coastal erosion the last time Sydney experienced a weather system of this type, in June 2016.

Golding said the damage might not be exactly the same this time, because the waves are coming from the east not the north-east. So the same beaches will be affected, but not necessarily the same parts of those beaches.

Narrabeen is another area that was significantly affected in 2016, and looks to be again today.

Updated

She’s bucketing down in the Sydney CBD.

Meanwhile, in Mosman, overflow from the council culvert is shifting the 20kg paving stones in Kathryn’s backyard and made off with the cushions.

This is totally fine.

Updated

Dam of drought-stricken Qld town gets two years worth of drinking water

How is this for some good news: the town of Warwick in southern Queensland has just had two years worth of drinking water flow into its dam.

More from AAP:

Leslie Dam, which supplies water to Warwick and surrounding communities, nearly doubled its capacity overnight.

At 4pm on Saturday SunWater recorded the dam’s level at 7.66 per cent. By 10.30am on Sunday it had risen to 12.64 per cent.

Mayor of the Southern Downs, Tracy Dobie, told AAP as much as two years worth of drinking water had flowed into Leslie Dam.

“We have had almost as much rain in January and February as we had in all of 2019,” Ms Dobie said.

The community of Stanthorpe near the border with NSW also received much needed rain.

The community officially ran out of drinking water in January, needing to truck water from Connolly dam 60km to the town’s north.

Ms Dobie told AAP Connelly dam received good rain, but the town’s main supply, Storm King Dam, did not receive enough to halt water trucking.

“We got one month of water into Storm King Dam, but we are looking at needing six months worth of rain to stop the trucking,” she said.

You may recall that Stanthorpe is one of the towns that has been relying on water donations from charities for months. Here’s more on that from Guardian Australia’s Brisbane correspondent, Ben Smee:

Updated

Fallen trees and flooding have caused traffic delays in parts of Sydney.

Hello, and welcome to what authorities say could be the wettest weekend in Sydney in 22 years.

After years of drought, Sydney is expected to receive the most rain it has had in one weather event since 1998.

The Bureau of Meteorology is recording rainfall rates of 15-20mm per hour in Sydney and the central coast of New South Wales, and there are reports of trees falling and roads flooding throughout the city, as well as extensive flooding on the north coast of NSW and southern Queensland. The State Emergency Service has received more than 3,000 calls for assistance since Thursday, and 40 calls to rescue people stranded in floodwaters.

We will keep you updated on the situation as it unfolds. I’m Calla Wahlquist, you can send me your updates and weather photos to calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com or on twitter @callapilla.

Updated

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