New flooding brings rescues, evacuations to New South Wales
SYDNEY – More than 30,000 residents of Sydney and its surrounds were told to evacuate or prepare to abandon their homes Monday as Australia’s largest city faces its fourth, and possibly worst, round of flooding in less than a year and a half.
Days of torrential rain caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks, bringing a new flood emergency to parts of the city of 5 million.
“The latest information we have is that there’s a very good chance that the flooding will be worse than any of the other three floods that those areas had in the last 18 months,” Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt said.
The flooding might affect areas spared in floods in March last year, March this year and April, Watt added.
New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said 32,000 people were impacted by evacuation orders and warnings.
“You’d probably expect to see that number increase over the course of the week,” Perrottet said.
Emergency services were getting hundreds of calls for help.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology manager, Jane Golding, said some areas between Newcastle, north of Sydney, and Wollongong, south of Sydney, had received more than 39 inches of rain in the previous 24 hours. Some had received more than 59 inches.
Those totals are near the average annual rainfall for coastal areas of New South Wales.
The flooding danger was highest along the Hawkesbury River, in northwest Sydney, and the Nepean River in Sydney’s west.
The bureau Monday afternoon reported major flooding at the Nepean communities of Menangle and Wallacia on Sydney’s southwest fringe.
Major flooding also occurred on the Hawkesbury at North Richmond on Sydney’s northwest edge. Windsor and Lower Portland were expected to be flooded Monday afternoon and Wisemans Ferry on Tuesday, a bureau statement said.
State Emergency Services Commissioner Carlene York said strong winds had toppled trees, damaging roofs and blocking roads.