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A former police officer has clashed with Dominic Perrottet over his response to a flood disaster after his town and home were destroyed.
An emotional Peter Jones criticized the government’s lack of help when the Prime Minister visited Eugowra, central west NSW, on Friday.
A woman has died, two men are missing and the city’s 750 residents are having months to recover after powerful flash floods flattened much of the region on Monday.
“I was the first to call and ask for goddamn helicopters, and I was practically told it wasn’t a major flood,” Mr Jones said.
He immediately shared suggestions on how the government could improve its flood response by introducing an operational command post to keep the public informed of disasters as they unfold.
A former police officer has clashed with Dominic Perrottet over his response to a flood disaster after his town and home were destroyed
An emotional Peter Jones criticized the government’s lack of help when the Prime Minister visited the local SES in Eugowra, central west NSW, on Friday.
“There should be one emergency number for this sort of thing,” he said.
Mr Jones berated the Prime Minister and said the town had been left penniless.
“We have had no food, no clothes, no one tells us what will happen next. What is your answer to some of them before I continue?’
Mr. Perrottet shook his head in embarrassment as he listened to the distraught resident.
“That’s not good enough,” he said.
Mr Jones revealed he was now homeless as the floods had destroyed his home and his cancer stricken brother also had nowhere to go.
“A tsunami – that’s exactly what it was,” he said. “It took us five days to get nowhere at all.”
“People here were left to fend for themselves,” he said.
Mr Jones said evacuees sent to Orange would return to Eugowra with nowhere to live.
“If you’re still in parliament next year, I want a face-to-face date with you in your office or at my house… I’ve had a gut,” he said.
A woman has died, two men are missing and the city’s 750 residents are having months to recover after powerful flash floods razed much of the region on Monday.
Mr Jones revealed he was now homeless as the floods had destroyed his home and his cancer stricken brother also had nowhere to go
Mr Jones later spoke of his clash with Mr Perrottet, where the outraged resident thought his message had fallen on deaf ears.
“I think they were stunned at what I had to say,” he said A current situation.
“It had to be said because of the next town that it’s happening. They should be willing to go right in and do what needs to be done.”
Mr Jones said Eugowra was now a lost cause and residents were left ‘shattered’.
The outraged resident claimed he was rejected by emergency services when he called triple zero and that police “shrugged him off.”
Mr Jones said by the time aid arrived it was too late.
‘We had the SES, they had 40 boats here. But the problem is that by then we had no water and all they did was hang around,” he said.
The outraged resident claimed he was turned away by emergency services when he called triple zero and police ‘shrugged him off’
Mr Jones said the government should have been prepared for a better response to flooding following its flood control experience earlier this year
“And then another 20 boats came in on Wednesday and they just stopped.”
Mr Jones said the government should have been prepared for a better response to flooding following its flood control experience earlier this year.
“The locals and the people from out of town who have come to help, as far as I’m concerned, the rest of the so-called emergency services, they were just a waste of time,” he said.
Mr Perrottet said the government had done what it could and would do about his concerns.
His government on Friday increased payments for affected farmers and said caravans would soon be deployed to house the city’s evacuees.
“We will … put people back on their blocks, even if their house is not habitable, in a caravan if they want to,” Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke told reporters in Eugowra.
Flood-weary NSW residents have been warned to expect the disaster to continue into the new year as emergency services brace for more rain over already saturated inland watersheds.
Flood-weary NSW residents have been warned to expect the disaster to continue into the new year as emergency services brace for more rain over already saturated inland watersheds
Major flooding is expected to continue Friday along several major river systems, including the Lachlan, Darling and Murrumbidgee rivers, affecting towns such as Forbes, Condobolin, Bourke and Hay
Major flooding is expected to continue Friday along several major river systems, including the Lachlan, Darling and Murrumbidgee rivers, affecting towns such as Forbes, Condobolin, Bourke and Hay.
“We continue to have widespread, significant emergency response across western and southern NSW,” Chief Superintendent Ashley Sullivan of the State Emergency Service told ABC News.
“Particularly concerning is that over the weekend we look at a weather system where we may see some additional rainfall and high winds over[those areas].”
The SES has carried out five flood rescues in the central-western region in the 24 hours to Friday morning, in addition to 244 other calls for help.
With several rivers flooded over the past six months, Sullivan said interstate and international assistance was available to relieve fatigued SES personnel.
“These floods at this rate are expected to be around Christmas … and into the New Year,” he said.
The protracted crisis has led NSW Farmers to call for a tripling of federal government emergency grants to $75,000.
Much of the southeastern part of the country will experience clear conditions Friday morning before thunderstorms return to western NSW in the evening, the weather bureau said.
Producers will struggle to recover without further support, the trade association says.
Defense aid is also needed to repair damaged roads to get farmers back on their properties to harvest what’s left of their crops, NSW Farmers says.
Downstream, Condobolin and Euabalong braced for the worst after the Lachlan River surpassed 1952 records.
Water levels in Euabalong are expected to reach 7.7 meters over the weekend, Condobolin could exceed 7.6 meters on Monday and further rises later in the week are possible, the weather bureau says.
The ongoing major flooding in Forbes is not expected to end until early next week.
Major flooding also occurs around Hay as the Murrumbidgee River remains high.
Thunderstorms will be widespread across NSW on Saturday before abating on Sunday afternoon
The outback town of Bourke will be a source of concern after the weather bureau predicted that the peak of the Darling River could match levels set in the September 1998 floods by Monday.
Much of the southeastern part of the country will experience clear conditions Friday morning before thunderstorms return to western NSW in the evening, the weather bureau said.
Thunderstorms will be widespread across NSW on Saturday before abating on Sunday afternoon.
Renewed showers are not expected to pose a flood risk, it said.