Residents of low-lying parts of the New South Wales central western town of Forbes have been warned not to become complacent about the threat of flooding, despite the rising waters moving at a “snail’s pace”.
The Lachlan River peaked at 10.75 metres overnight, with low-lying areas of the town expected to flood late on Wednesday.
The emergency services minister, David Elliott, said 275 SES volunteers were stationed there and he was “delighted” there had been no flood rescues overnight.
But he warned people to stay on high alert for rising flood waters and alert to closed roads. “It can be many many days before some of these flood waters actually make their way to their final resting place,” he said.
The mayor of Forbes, Phyllis Miller, said residents have been waiting for the flood for almost a week but waters were rising at “a snail’s pace” and she was concerned that people were becoming complacent.
Miller told Guardian Australia she was concerned complacency was exacerbated by the SES issuing evacuation orders based on mapping from previous floods as old as 1952, despite the uniqueness of each flood event.
Miller said as locals “we know where inundation areas are and we need to make our instructions more targeted so that we can be more accurate in the way we issue our evacuation orders,” Miller said.
“But our river is coming up and it will peak some time today. Every flood is different.
“We’re not sure what that will do inside the town or what will happen with the lake system when that water starts to join up with the river water.”
On Tuesday morning about 1,800 residents were ordered to evacuate by the State Emergency Service, which was concerned the river levels would match or exceed major floods in 2016.
The SES commissioner, Carlene York, said 800 homes could be flooded as she pleaded with some reluctant locals to evacuate.
“It’s not unusual for people who have lived in that area and lived through a number of floods to say, ‘It didn’t flood last time, I’ll take the risk and stay,’” she told reporters on Tuesday.
“But every flooding is different and water flows in different ways.”
An evacuation centre has been set up at St Andrews Presbyterian church for those unable to get to alternative accommodation with family or friends.
Moderate flooding has already occurred upstream at Cowra, with major flooding at Nanami, where the river peaked at more than 12 metres.
Downstream from Forbes, major flooding was also expected at Cottons Weir and Jemalong from Thursday.
The Macquarie, Paroo, Macintyre, Belubula, and Snowy rivers have also flooded after parts of the state copped a month’s worth of rain in days.
Jodi Bilsborough, a third-generation resident of Forbes, was choosing to stay with her family and their three horses, eight chickens, one cat, two birds and two dogs in the home on Bathurst Street where she has lived since she was three, despite the SES issuing evacuation orders for the area.
Bilsborough’s home is surrounded by an earth levy and sandbags.
The SES knocked on her door on Tuesday telling her to evacuate but she made the same choice as her mother had in previous years.
An SES superintendent, Stewart Fisher had said it was “disappointing” not everyone had followed evacuation orders. But Miller defended her constituents’ choices, saying locals often knew better than the volunteers who have come from across the state.
“They’ve got volunteers that come to town that don’t understand what the area is like so these kind of things happen,” she told Guardian Australia. “I’ve explained this to my community, it’s no one’s fault, it’s the system we have to work under. I trust that my community knows what they’re doing.”
Bilsborough didn’t believe the SES volunteer she spoke to knew the situation as well as she did.
“I feel locals would know a bit more about how the flood works out here,” she said. “We’ve never had a flash flood come through this place.
“When you lived out here and done a few floods here, you know it just sort of creeps up the road and surrounds the place and that’s about it.
“We were always staying, I never thought about leaving. Maybe if it was rushing I may have taken the kids out and moved the animals.”
Bilsborough said the family was stocked up for the coming days. Her son Eli said: “It’s like we’re just in lockdown again.”
