Lismore residents have been warned to brace for another round of flooding as heavy rain fell along the east coast, and the Murray River town of Echuca-Moama anxiously waited to see if its levees would hold back the forecast peak on Sunday.
The Murray River at the Echuca Wharf gauge was expected to exceed the 1993 flood levels of 94.77 metres AHD on Saturday afternoon, and reach a peak of 95 metres on Sunday or Monday.
Water was spilling over a levee near the centre of the border town, with authorities warning anyone left in the area to leave while they can.
“We don’t want to be rescuing people. Our strongest message is evacuate now,” the Victorian SES chief officer, Tim Wiebusch, told reporters on Saturday.
The flood water has slowly been creeping toward the town for a week, after heavy falls in catchment areas for the Goulburn, Campaspe and Loddon rivers in central Victoria, which all feed into the Murray. Once the peak passes Echuca it will flow downstream, affecting Swan Hill later this month and Mildura in November.
Meanwhile thousands of New South Wales residents were bracing for flash flooding, falling trees and landslides with heavy rain and thunderstorms forecast over the next few days.
The northern rivers region could see falls of 150mm or more within 24 hours, the Bureau of Meteorology warned, thanks to a coastal low that brought heavy rainfall to Queensland on Friday and Saturday.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter and afternoon email to get your daily news roundup
The NSW emergency services minister, Steph Cooke, said large parts of the state, including the inland and west, were in for a “difficult few days”.
Emergency services were preparing for a busy weekend as the wild weather arrived, with volunteers handing out 30,000 sandbags a day.
“We are quite literally sandbagging the state,” Cooke told reporters.
She said the coastal low “is being described as a high-impact event”.
“The risks include life-threatening flash flooding, trees coming down, damaging winds, and hazardous surf … The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting potentially major flooding at Lismore,” she said.
The NSW SES commissioner, Carlene York, said flash flooding and hail could be made worse by heavy winds which could easily uproot trees in saturated areas.
“It’s already extremely busy and we’re expecting this next 24 to 48 hours to see more requests for assistance,” she said.
There were 98 warnings from the NSW SES on Saturday and 19 river systems were subject to flood warnings. An evacuation order was issued for Moree in northern NSW, where heavy rain pushed the Mehi and Gwydir rivers into major flooding, with levels expected to exceed the flood recorded in March 2021 and approach flood heights not seen since 1955.
“There is not a single part of NSW that I am not concerned about at this point in time,” Cooke said.
after newsletter promotion
There were 70 warnings for communities at risk of flood or storm damage in Victoria. A roving crew of 400 people had repaired 40,000 potholes on the state’s flood-ravaged roads in the past week, with dozens of roads still closed.
The SES received about 140 requests for help in Victoria on Friday night with thunderstorms bringing isolated patches of heavy rain.
Three people were rescued after driving through flood waters near Geelong and more than 85mm of rain was recorded in nearby She Oaks.
“We know the single largest killer of flooding in Australia is as a result of people attempting to drive through flash flood waters,” Wiebusch said. “Please do not attempt that in the coming days.”
The Victorian SES had received more than 8,300 calls for help since the weather emergency began and more than 750 flood-related rescue requests.
In NSW, a woman with a pre-existing medical condition was airlifted to hospital in Tamworth late on Friday by the Westpac rescue helicopter after becoming isolated by flood water on a property at Narrabri.
The same chopper was called to a northern tablelands farm west of Glen Innes on Friday after a man trying to drive a tractor through flood water became stranded when the engine stalled.
He was dragged approximately 200 metres to dry land by onlookers before being treated by paramedics for exposure and hypothermia.
Defence force personnel had been deployed to flood-affected communities in both NSW and Victoria.