NSW flood ravaged locals slam government as clean up begins
Flood affected communities are banding together, as the impact of ravaging waters continues to be felt across western Sydney and the Mid-North Coast.
NSW
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For some stranded on the western side of the Hawkesbury River it has been locals, not the government, who have come to their rescue.
Luke Ainscough owns two pubs — the Clarendon Tavern and the Fitzroy Hotel. But more importantly this week, he owns a helicopter.
While his beers have been providing some much needed relief for flood affected locals, it‘s his aircraft that has been doing the crucial work.
The 35-year-old businessman has spent the past two days using his private chopper to get food and medical supplies to North Richmond, Wilberforce and Colo, and then bring stranded people back.
He estimates it has cost him $2,000-an-hour, or around $35,000 across the two days.
Although Mr Ainscough is more than happy to help his community, he does not understand how it reached a point where people were relying on him — not the state or federal governments — for help.
“People over there are stuffed,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“They’ve had homes, farms and businesses flooded. They’ve got no food — literally one guy we ferried across hadn’t eaten for three days.
“I’ve been a Hawkesbury boy my whole life and I’ve got a helicopter, so I wanted to help out.
“The government should be using all the helicopters they have lined up over there and using army personnel to fly stuff over.”
On Wednesday morning Mr Ainscough and good mate Rodney Waters loaded the chopper up to the roof with food hampers, donated by local charity Helping Hands.
They dropped them in North Richmond and picked up another piece of precious cargo — Trevor Erasmus.
Because of Mr Ainscough’s generosity, Mr Erasmus will now marry fiancee Kaitlyn Teese in Queensland on Friday — a huge relief after a week filled with tears.
A different private helicopter carried out another essential delivery on Wednesday, taking pharmacist Lizzy Gripper to the Ron Middleton Nursing Home in North Richmond, where she dropped off boxes of medication to the 80 residents.
The Blooms the Chemist store in Windsor normally makes daily deliveries, but because of floods would not have been able to get across the river for a week.
Businesses and homeowners along the Hawkesbury River are only now beginning to count the cost of four days of devastating rains.
But they are also bracing themselves for a clean-up operation that is likely to take weeks.
Wayne Smith, who owns the Dargle Turf Farm about 3km upriver from water-ravaged Sackville, is unlikely to be able to get home for a fortnight.
In an extra blow for Mr Smith’s sister Tracey and her husband Chris Pugsley, their home, just 500 metres away from their ski resort business, remains completely flooded from the deluge.
“She’s devastated about the house, and that’s just this time — it’s the worry about next time that hurts,” Mr Smith said of his sister.
“The impact personally for them is going to be very great.”
While the family and neighbours worked feverishly to save their personal belongings, Mr Smith said they were resigned to finding much of their furniture and property destroyed when floodwaters reside.
A quick boat-ride around the flooded area shows debris strewn throughout the flood plain, while some caravans had been lifted by the fierce waters and wedged against other structures.
The clean up is already underway on the Mid-North Coast, with hundreds of helping hands coming out in a show of community force on Wednesday.
On Settlement Point Drive in Port Macquarie, armies of local builders, forklift drivers, waste operators and other accredited emergency service agencies came together for a working bee.
Together they began to clear the sludge, slime and silt from the flood ravage properties belonging to people like Sharon Jones.
“That’s my life out there on the lawn,” Ms Jones said.
“There’s a lot of my childhood and a lot of my mum’s stuff in there, she passed away two years ago.
“I’ve been through cyclones up in Cairns in Darwin … they’re more scary, but the water here was crazy. The cat wasn’t very happy either.
“But I’d say I’ve done well compared to some people. It’s just memories that I’ve lost, I can make new ones now.”
CALCULATING COST OF NSW FLOODS
The once-in-a-lifetime NSW floods have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and the final toll could reach into the billions as the ruined countryside emerges from the sludge.
As-yet incalculable losses are only becoming clear as the Australian Defence Force begins venturing into the hardest hit areas.
The first death of the crisis emerged late on Wednesday when emergency crews found a man‘s body in a car in floodwaters at Glenorie, west of Sydney.
It was a tragic revelation after NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian hours earlier declared it had been a “miracle” that no lives had been lost.
“I want to thank all those frontline workers who have put safety on the line, sometimes in the darkness of night to help people to rescue people and to bring people to safety,” she said.
“I can’t thank you enough for that.”
Almost 1000 people have been rescued by the SES and emergency crews since the flooding began.
The swollen rivers were receding in some areas on Wednesday but, with the massive catchments still feeding the waterways in the mountains, other areas are expected to continue rising for days to come.
The Insurance Council of Australia, who declared much of NSW a catastrophe on Monday, extended the zone into south east Queensland on Wednesday.
The ICA, at the start of the crisis, were among those fearing the final toll could reach into the billions but cannot put a figure on the damage yet.
So far they‘ve logged more than 17,000 insurance claims with an estimated $254m in damages.
About 85 per cent of those have come from NSW and insurers believe this is just the very beginning.
By way of comparison, a far smaller flood in February 2020 caused almost $950m in damages across Greater Sydney.
That deluge pales in comparison to the historic and widespread damage wreaked across the entire east coast by this week‘s now fatal flood event.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Federal Government had already sent $13.5m to 10,000 people affected by the flood.
The Australian Defence Force established Operation NSW Flood Assist and prepared 700 troops to help NSW with the recovery.
About 300 ADF members will be on standby to deploy from Thursday after NSW formally requested the help from the federal government.
The military has been supporting the NSW Government’s efforts with aerial search and rescue support and civilian evacuation operations around Sydney’s north west and the south coast.
“We are still going through a dangerous period of managing the flood crisis itself,“ Ms Berejiklian said.
Major flood warnings will remain in place for the Hawkesbury River at Windsor, Sackville and North Richmond, as well as the Colo River at Colo and Colo Heights.
Flood evacuation orders were issued for Southgate on the Clarence River north of Grafton and low lying properties in Moree.
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