A sight that must be seen to be believed was captured on film in outback Australia as a massive ‘inland sea’ engulfed a country town.
The video, taken by volunteers delivering sandbags on the north bank of the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales, shows two 4WD vehicles driving through and endless sea of flood water.
Kate Nisbet who shared the video on Facebook and is actively patrolling the area said she has ‘never seen flooding like this’.
Wild weather has wreaked havoc on large swathes of the state’s central-west this week, with towns along the Murrumbidgee and Lachlan River copping near record peaks as the Wyangala dam continues to spill out.
In the 24 hours alone until Wednesday morning, the SES responded to 329 calls for help and performed 17 flood rescues.
A sight that must be seen to be believed was captured on film in outback Australia as a massive ‘inland sea’ engulfed a country town
‘I’ve never seen it in my lifetime, everything is just wet and it’s on both sides and nowhere for the water to go,’ she wrote on social media.
‘It just goes for miles as far as your eye can see.
‘It’s like it everywhere in every direction it’s amazing really.’
Social media users were baffled by the video saying the vision is ‘almost unbelievable’ and that it looks like an ‘inland sea’.
‘You would think you’re driving through a sea,’ one person commented.
‘Wow, that’s almost unbelievable. Take care everyone,’ said another.
The video taken by volunteers delivering sandbags on the north bank of the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales, shows two 4WD vehicles driving through and endless sea of flood water
Kate Nisbet who shared the video on Facebook and was patrolling the area handing out sandbags said she has never seen flooding like this
Meanwhile, a traumatised mum held back tears as she detailed the terrifying moment a 1,200m wall of water smashed through her house, 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 seeking refuge in her elevated home when they were given just minutes to flee the house after a flash flood swept through the street, lifting up homes and cars and forcing people to climb onto their roofs.
The area has been devastated by flash flooding this week with locals saying their home now looks like a ‘war zone’ and the nearby town of Forbes bracing for another day of complete inundation.
‘I was looking after a little girl and we were trying to save this person’s house over here,’ Jodie told A Current Affair, motioning to a home across the road from her own.
‘We started driving off just 200m 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 this huge 1200m wall (of water) coming right at us. It was insane.’
Jodie (pictured) was covered in mud as she spoke about the clean-up she now faces after flooding destroyed her home
The Eugowra mum hoped her house would be spared given it’s on higher ground but the elevation did little to stop floodwaters
Jodie managed to get her car into the driveway right before the water hit.
‘I’ve always said we would never flood, ever, because of the height we have … but then by the time I came (to the house), this whole area just came up, swoosh, straight into my house,’ she said, holding back tears.
Her home was already full of families thinking they would be safe in her higher house but the water quickly started rushing in.
‘We were in the house for a while trying to plug up things… my dog was swimming down the hall. It was awful to see,’ she said.
The pressure of the water eventually caused her front door to split in two, with the families frantically trying to flee the torrent of water gushing into the home.
The floodwaters inundated the town of Eugowra with locals huddling on their roofs while waiting for help
NSW’s central west has been hit by unprecedented floods in recent days (pictured)
‘My son was screaming to get out but I couldn’t. We had water all around us. I could not open doors,’ she said.
‘I go to the front of the house and… the water was higher than me and I heard it crack, the next minute, half of the door had come in and the water was gushing in.’
Jodie’s split-second decision to keep her car in the driveway saved everyone with the fleeing group using the vehicle to hoist themselves onto a roof.
The families huddled together on the roof for six hours before a helicopter rescued them.
Jodie now faces a mammoth clean-up after the water destroyed everything in her house.
‘Twenty-two years worth of stuff 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 NSW flood zones to help people in the central west.
A flood-damaged home in the town of Eugowra after floodwaters destroyed streets on Tuesday
More than 160 emergency personnel, including 12 volunteers from New Zealand, have been deployed to help in the flood-ravaged central-west and more are expected from Singapore and the US.
With rescue aircraft, military personnel and emergency crews on patrol, the body of a missing woman in the state’s central west was located on Wednesday.
The woman has been formally identified as Dianne Smith, 60, from the town of Eugowra, which was devastated by roof-high flash-flooding in the early hours of Monday.
Ms Smith last spoke to a relative by phone from her car that morning.
Ljubisa ‘Les’ Vugec, 85, last seen at his Eugowra home on Monday morning, is still missing.
The Bureau of Meteorology is warning Lachlan River – which is part of the Murrumbidgee catchment – could meet the historic June 1952 peak of 10.8 metres on Thursday morning, with major inundation expected to persist until the end of the week.
An ambulance pushed off the roads and destroyed by floods in Eugowra (pictured on Tuesday)
State Emergency Service chaplain Steve Hall said Eugowra has been decimated in the disaster.
‘Everything they hold dear has been swept away in a wall of water,’ he said.
People in parts of the north-western town of Gunnedah have been told to evacuate as the area is hit with major flooding.
The Namoi River is predicted to peak near 8.2m early in the day.
Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said there were 122 flood warnings in place and hundreds of homes have been destroyed.
‘I’m very worried about communities right across NSW,’ she told ABC TV.
‘There’s not a river system at the moment that’s not in flood or communities at risk.’
SES Chief Superintendent Dallas Burns said floodwaters at Forbes were slowly rising with water spreading throughout the town.
‘We’re expecting that peak and that major flooding in Forbes to last a number of days,’ he said, adding the flooding would continue in some river valleys and catchments for a number of months.
One of the many vehicles swept away during the flash flood in Eugowra this week (pictured on Tuesday)
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