NSW floods: Inland sea video at Maude, Eugowra, Forbes

A sight that has to be seen to be believed was captured on film in Australia’s outback as a vast ‘inland sea’ engulfed a rural town.

The video, shot by volunteers delivering sandbags to the north bank of the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales, shows two 4WD vehicles driving through an endless sea of ​​floodwaters.

Kate Nisbet, who shared the video on Facebook and actively patrols the area, said she had “never seen flooding like this.”

Wild weather has devastated large parts of the state’s central west this week, with towns along the Murrumbidgee and Lachlan River reaching near-record peaks as the Wyangala Dam continues to spill.

In the 24 hours to Wednesday morning alone, the SES responded to 329 calls for help and conducted 17 flood rescues.

“I’ve never seen it in my life, everything is just wet and it’s on both sides and the water has nowhere to go,” she wrote on social media.

“It just goes on for miles as far as your eye can see.

“It’s like it’s everywhere in every direction, it’s really amazing.”

Social media users were baffled by the video saying the vision is “almost unbelievable” and that it resembles an “inland sea.”

“You would think you are driving through a sea,” one person commented.

Wow, that’s almost unbelievable. Be careful everyone,’ said another.

Meanwhile, a traumatized mother held back tears as she described the terrifying moment when a 4,000-foot wall of water slammed through her home, forcing her and other families to climb onto a roof and wait six hours to be rescued.

Jodie, who lives in the NSW Central West town of Eugowra, said she had a group of families take refuge in her raised home when they were given just minutes to flee the house after flash floods swept through the street and destroyed homes and lifted cars. and forcing people to climb onto their roofs.

The area was devastated by flash floods this week. Locals say their home now looks like a ‘war zone’ and the nearby town of Forbes is bracing for another day of complete flooding.

“I was taking care of a little girl and we were trying to save this person’s house here,” Jodie recalled A current situationpointing to a house across the street from hers.

“We started pulling away just 200 yards away and by the time I got here I looked up and it had already hit the right side of my car and it was just a huge 4,000 foot wall (of water) going straight on came off us. It was insane.’

Jodie managed to pull her car into the driveway just before the water hit.

“I always said we would never flood because of the height we have… she said, holding back her tears.

Her house was already full of families who thought they would be safe in her upper house, but the water soon started pouring in.

“We were in the house for a while plugging things in… my dog ​​was swimming down the hallway. It was horrible to watch,” she said.

The pressure of the water eventually caused her front door to split in two, with the families frantically trying to flee from the deluge of water pouring into the house.

“My son was screaming to get out, but I couldn’t. We had water all around us. I couldn’t open doors,” she said.

“I go to the front of the house and… the water was higher than me and I heard it creak, the next minute half the door had come in and the water gushed in.”

Jodie’s split-second decision to leave her car in the driveway saved everyone with the fleeing group using the vehicle to hoist themselves onto a roof.

The families huddled on the roof for six hours before a helicopter rescued them.

Jodie is now facing a major cleanup after the water has destroyed everything in her house.

“Twenty-two years worth of stuff is just gone, in the blink of an eye,” she said.

Jodie’s horrifying story comes as rescue helicopters, military personnel and international emergency crews rush to the flood plains of NSW to help people in the Central West.

More than 160 emergency workers, including 12 volunteers from New Zealand, have been deployed to help in the flood-ravaged Central West, with more expected from Singapore and the US.

With rescue planes, military personnel and rescue crews on patrol, the body of a missing woman was located in the state’s central west on Wednesday.

The woman has been formally identified as Dianne Smith, 60, from the town of Eugowra, who was devastated by roof-high flash flooding in the early hours of Monday.

Mrs. Smith last spoke to a family member from her car that morning by telephone.

Ljubisa ‘Les’ Vugec, 85, last seen Monday morning at his Eugowra home, is still missing.

The Bureau of Meteorology is warning that the Lachlan River – which is part of the Murrumbidgee watershed – could hit its historic June 1952 peak of 10.8 meters on Thursday morning, with major flooding expected to continue through the end of the week. persist.

State Emergency Service chaplain Steve Hall said Eugowra was decimated in the disaster.

“Everything they hold dear has been swept away in a wall of water,” he said.

People in parts of the northwestern city of Gunnedah have been told to evacuate as the area is hit by major flooding.

The Namoi River is expected to peak at nearly 8.2 meters early in the day.

Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said there were 122 flood warnings and hundreds of homes destroyed.

“I am deeply concerned about communities across NSW,” she told ABC TV.

“There is currently no river system that does not flood or endanger communities.”

SES Superintendent Dallas Burns said the water at Forbes slowly rose as the water spread throughout the city.

“We expect that peak and major flooding in Forbes to last for several days,” he said, adding that flooding in some river valleys and watersheds will continue for several months.