Homeowners return to flood devastation

Thousands of residents are returning home to assess damage and start repairs after a historic week of devastating floods and rainfall.

A resident at Telegraph Point, north of Port Macquarie, cleans up after flood devastation. Picture: Nathan Edwards

Thousands of evacuated residents are returning home to ­assess water damage and begin repairs, as the devastating human toll inflicted by the worst flooding in NSW in more than 50 years continues to emerge.

On Friday morning, police ­retrieved the car of a missing woman from the Barrington River near Gloucester.

Adele Morrison, 78, was last seen leaving her home in Port Macquarie on March 17, but police said they were unable to locate her body due to floodwaters.

Since last Thursday, a total of 12,368 calls for help and 1033 rescues have been recorded by the State Emergency Services.

Despite receding floodwaters and the cancellation of dozens of evacuation orders across NSW, the SES continues to conduct rescues in parts of the mid-north coast, with 33 undertaken in the 24 hours to Friday.

A spokesman for the organisation said “almost 9000 residents and visitors have been stranded for days and want to get home, but hasty decisions are leading to avoidable accidents,” as some drivers venture on to damaged or flooded roads.

At least 2000 houses have suffered water damage, with more than 100 rendered uninhabitable. However, both figures are expected to dramatically climb over the coming days.

Eight all-clear notices have been issued for the Wingham River, the Manning River and Hawkesbury River regions, including Windsor, Wisemans Ferry and Brooklyn.

While floodwaters dropped across much of NSW and parts of southeast Queensland, the ­Bureau of Meteorology cautioned that regions around the Hawkesbury-Nepean valley, Moree, Boggabilla and Goondiwindi would continue to be closely monitored.

A spokesman for BOM said “we haven’t seen this level of flooding along the Barwon-Darling since 2011, and we haven’t seen any significant flood flows like this since 2016”.

A multi-agency strike force has been mobilised by the NSW government, with equipment and crews being deployed for the clean-up. The crews will be supplemented by 300 soldiers, who have already commenced aerial search-and-rescue operations.

Stationed across Coffs Harbour, Taree, Port Macquarie, Kempsey and Macksville, troop numbers are set to double by the beginning of next week.

While insurance assessors begin entering flood-affected ­regions, the cost of the damage remains unclear, with chief executive of the Insurance Council of Australia, Andrew Hall, suggesting it won’t be until “the middle of next week that we’ll get a more accurate estimate”.

More than 22,000 claims have been lodged. IAG, the country’s largest provider of general insurance, said it had started to ­assess more than 7500 claims, which they expect to increase over the weekend.

On Friday, Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian announced grants of up to $75,000 would be available for affected primary producers. The cost of the recovery package, would be shared by the NSW government and the commonwealth “50-50”.