Three dead, one missing as major flooding continues in New South Wales, Australia

RNZ News

22-05-2025

More than 350 people were rescued by emergency services on Wednesday.
Photo:
Supplied / Fire and Rescue NSW
A third person has been confirmed dead and another remains missing as major flooding continues across the New South Wales Mid North Coast.
Police said they recovered the body of a 60-year-old woman in her car at Brooklana, 30km west of Coffs Harbour, on Thursday afternoon.
NSW Police Northern Region Commander David Waddell said the woman had been travelling in convoy with a police officer in a sedan on Wednesday night near Dorrigo, when the cars reached ankle deep floodwaters.
"The officer stopped and told the woman he wasn't continuing, and the woman in the 4WD decided to continue," Commander Waddell said.
"He gave her his phone number and told her to continue with caution and not to enter floodwaters."
The woman travelled another 17km and rang 30 minutes later in trouble, but police were unable to find her on Wednesday night.
Her body was located on Thursday afternoon (local time).
"Obviously the police officer who spoke to the woman is very traumatised and we are wrapping support services around him," Commander Waddell said.
"It's just a tragic circumstance."
Investigations into the death are ongoing.
A car submerged in a flooded area in the New South Wales town of Taree.
Photo:
Supplied/Instagram
Earlier Thursday, emergency service crews also found the body of a man in floodwaters near Rosewood, 4km west of Wauchope.
Authorities started searching for the man, who is believed to be in his 30s, on Wednesday night following reports he had become stuck in floodwaters while driving.
It comes after police found the body of 63-year-old David Knowles in a flooded home on North Moto Road in Moto, north-east of Taree, on Wednesday afternoon.
His daughter told the ABC her father had been found in ankle deep water after likely suffering a medical incident.
She said she had been told her father was approached by an SES evacuation crew on Tuesday, but told them to prioritise another family further upstream.
He could not be located afterwards.
"He would give you the jumper on your back if you were freezing, he was just like that," Knowles's daughter said.
Water covers Hastings River Drive at Port Macquarie.
Photo:
ABC Mid North Coast / Emma Siossian
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted his condolences following news of the 63-year-old's death, in a statement on social media.
"This is devastating news… the thoughts of all Australians are with his loved ones and the community at this time."
A 49-year-old man is still missing at Nymboida, south of Grafton, after he reportedly failed to return home Wednesday night after walking near a flooded roadway.
Emergency services have conducted nearly 600 flood rescues across this rainfall event.
Torrential rain has pelted the area from the Central Coast to Grafton during the week, with Taree, Port Macquarie, Wauchope, Kempsey, Macksville and Coffs Harbour among the hardest hit.
The Macleay River is moving at speed under the Kempsey Bridge.
Photo:
ABC/Emma Rennie
Rain totals include:
Along the coastline the SES has 25 evacuation warnings still current.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told the ABC there was a "massive emergency service contingent on the Mid North Coast".
"There are 2,500 emergency service workers, including 2,200 SES volunteers and professionals that are onsite," he said.
"Over 500 vehicles and boats, 13 helicopters, hundreds of drones, so this is a major operation."
An estimated 50,000 people have been warned to prepare for isolation, as widespread areas of rain, with locally intense falls, have led to new evacuation warnings across much of the region.
Evacuation centres are operating across New South Wales.
In the Kempsey CBD, floodwater from the Macleay River has overtopped the levee and is still rising.
The SES has coordinated a multi-agency response on the ground to evacuate the area, which includes several hotels.
Low-lying areas of Port Macquarie, including Settlement Point, have been inundated, while further north Coffs Harbour, Bellingen, Macksville and Nambucca have experienced flash flooding.
Coffs Harbour resident Susanna Rixon-Seager said heavy rain caused flash flooding around her home on Grant Close, which backed onto a small creek.
She said more than 215mm of rain had fallen there since 9am Wednesday (local time).
"We heard the heavy rain hitting around 5ish [this morning]," Rixon-Seager said.
"So we looked out the window and we could see it coming up the driveway … there was no way of getting out of the house."
Rixon-Seager said the water had receded and that her family was planning to stay at home for the rest of the day in accordance with SES instructions to avoid non-essential travel.
The weather has been blamed for power outages to thousands of homes from Woolgoolga down to Forster.
Essential Energy Mid North Coast operations manager Rob Ridley said the worst-affected areas were around Taree.
He said falling vegetation and rising floodwater had damaged powerlines and outages could last for days.
"With the floodwaters, we have got limited to access to even scope a lot of the faults," Ridley said.
"We will be doing aerial patrols to get a bird's-eye view across the footprint, but we expect outages to go for a few more days yet."
Taree insurance broker Jeremy Thornton told ABC News Radio that getting flood insurance was "impossible" in some parts of the region.
"There are only three companies we can use that do householders' [insurance] for our area," he said.
"Two of them didn't quote because of the postcode and the one that did quote - it was half their annual wage for the year to get insurance."
But Thornton said the insurance companies were not to blame.
"It's just that this is what happens and it's happening too often," he said.
"They can't keep up and something's gotta give in that space."
- ABC