Dozens trapped as record-breaking floods leave residents stranded
More than 50 people have been trapped and some 16,000 more are expected to require assistance as record flooding on the NSW Mid North Coast has inundated homes and left residents stranded.
The Manning River at Taree is flooding at a level never seen before, breaking an almost 100-year record as it passed six metres early on Wednesday. The Manning River is expected to peak later in the day, with residents warned to move to higher ground if it is too late to evacuate.
Residents in Taree, Wingham and Glenthorne are among those worst hit by the flooding, with the NSW State Emergency Service responding to 130 flood rescues in the area over the past 24 hours.
Rising waters and treacherous conditions presented difficulties for emergency services last night. SES authorities are expected to send aerial assistance later on Wednesday.
About 7400 dwellings on the Mid North Coast are expected to have been isolated by the floods.
The SES is concerned that intense rainfall for the area, expected to continue on Wednesday, could result in life-threatening flash flooding for elevated inland parts of the region.
Taree resident Holly Pilotto, who has been stranded on an upper level of her home since last night, told Nine's Today she was desperate for rescue assistance as floodwaters continue to rise.
'Our neighbours on the back veranda here are also stranded,' Pilotto said. 'It's a really dangerous spot to be … we do really just want to get some rescue squad out here, and get it happening now that it's daylight.'
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SBS Australia
3 days ago
- SBS Australia
'Going to get worse': Why Sam's dream home came with a $30,000 insurance dilemma
Sam Halloran (left) with his father Leigh, outside their flood damaged home in Glenthorne, NSW. Source: SBS News Sam Halloran wanted to raise his son in the house his father Leigh raised him in. But their dream turned to a nightmare as the biggest flood in living memory tore through their community in May. The Manning River rose so quickly that Sam, his wife and two-year-old son became trapped on the second level of their riverside home just outside the Taree CBD, in Glenthorne, NSW. His wife and son were airlifted to safety by helicopter, in a dramatic rescue Sam filmed from their balcony. "It was a big ordeal," Sam told SBS News. "My wife and son were airlifted by PolAir first. Then they came back and got my roommate who's been living downstairs with us. "They were going to take me as well, but they couldn't take our two dogs.' On Facebook Sam wrote of the rescue: "Probably the most traumatic thing I've ever endured having to restrain my beautiful two year old son in this bag screaming while his mum was being lifted up and pass him onto the roof to be lifted into the air with her." Sam said he decided to stay and wait for a State Emergency Service boat. "They eventually did come. They came and got me with the two dogs," he said. "There was a moment there where we thought we might not get the dogs out, so when that did happen, it was quite a relief." Sam said he launched straight into the cleanup and hasn't fully processed being rescued and coming back to a house left ruined by floodwater, mud and debris. Sam's two-year-old son has been having nightmares about the helicopter rescue, he said. "I've got to be here [for the cleanup], but it's getting harder to get out of bed." Protecting Sam's dream home and his young family's future was put at a very high price. "We had one insurance company that would have insured us, but it was over $30,000 a year, which we couldn't afford,' Sam said. The quote provided to Sam in August last year, seen by SBS News, shows the annual premium for standard building and contents insurance on their home was priced at $29,817.91. Insurance premiums in the area soared out of reach for most after floods in 2021. This year in the Manning Valley, the flood reached more than a metre higher than four years ago, so the insurance problem is only expected to worsen. "There's going to be people that were insured that won't be insured moving forward," Sam said. Leigh, Sam's father, says he purchased insurance on the same home in 2002. "I think I paid about $700 to insure the house. Yes, it was 20 years ago, but it's not comparable, is it?" Leigh said. "Insurance companies, sure, they're there to make a profit. I understand that. They wouldn't exist without profit. "But at the end of the day, they're putting premiums up far beyond the average household's budget." The Hallorans said they'd only heard of one person in the area who was insured, but their premium was still over $10,000 a year. On their street, they didn't know of anyone able to afford the exorbitant premiums. "No one in this entire street has flood insurance because they are all quoted around the $30,000 mark," Leigh said. In April, financial comparison site Canstar published its analysis of average annual premiums for home and contents insurance across Australia. In NSW, the average combined policy costs $2,210, based on homes valued between $300,000 and $1.5 million with $50,000 in contents cover. The Insurance Council of Australia has declared the recent NSW floods an 'insurance catastrophe', with nearly 8,000 claims processed as of Saturday. Up to 10,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed, with more than 800 already declared uninhabitable. During a visit to Taree on Tuesday, SBS News asked Insurance Council of Australia CEO Andrew Hall whether he would support reforms to assist people who can't afford to insure their properties or businesses in flood zones. "When we see that happen and particularly in events like we're going through here at the moment, it underscores the point that we have been making now for a number of years to government," Hall said. "Insurance prices [relate to] the risk, and we know that in Australia there are around 220,000 homes that are built in high-risk flood zones like where we are right now. "We need to come up with a flood defence fund that can better flood-proof those properties, that can lift the home out of harm's way and, worst-case scenario, we may have to look at buybacks." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, also speaking in Taree on Tuesday, acknowledged "there are longer-term issues that need to be looked at" to address the insurance problem. "We recognise that people are doing it really tough. I've said that more support is going to be needed," Albanese said. "We expect insurance companies to do right by their customers and swiftly process claims. They've set up an office here so that they can be dealt with swiftly. "But our focus now is on the cleanup and recovery from this event. That's our focus, the immediate needs." Federal Minister for Emergency Management Kristy McBain also told ABC's RN Breakfast program on Wednesday that insurance in flood-prone areas was a "significant concern". "We know for a number of the businesses and the farms that we spoke to, they either haven't been offered insurance or insurance was too expensive for them to take up," McBain said. She said she and Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino would be having direct discussions with insurance companies and the Insurance Council. Sam Halloran told SBS News that the immediate relief provided by the federal government wasn't proportionate to the scale of the cleanup and recovery facing the community. "Seventy people from the [Australian Defence Force] … we've had more volunteers than that just in our street alone in the last week, so I don't know what 70 ADF members are supposed to do," he said. "I've got people here working that have run their own businesses, they're sole operators, and they've donated their time to help me. "We need machinery. At my place alone, there is something like 400 trucks worth of silt to get rid of." A few doors down from the Hallorans, Daryl Hammond owns a farm. His main business is producing feed. The seasonal nature of his business, he says, means insurance is nearly impossible for him to get. "I can't insure anything because last month I had over 1,000 bales of silage. Come the end of July, August, I might have 50. How can I insure something like that?" Hammond told SBS News last week. "I'd be onto the broker every second day. It would cost me $20,000 [to] $30,000 a year just to have everything insured if I could insure it. And, I mean, mostly [the insurance companies] just shake their head." For Hammond, the Hallorans and their neighbours, they want to see change. The community wants to keep living where they have deep roots and connections, but also wants a way to protect their future. "Houses like this are not a river frontage, there is a farm between us and the river. At the end of the day, yes, it's in a flood zone, but [the insurance] is becoming unfathomable," Leigh Halloran said. "Sam spent his teenage years here. It's a great community. Everyone just gets on perfectly, and it was a great place for him to grow up, and he wants to raise his son in this community, you know? Which is really, really nice." Sam Halloran says it's impossible to predict what Mother Nature is going to do, but all levels of government need to work harder to prevent the impact of disasters on regional communities. "The 100-year flood development control in our local council area is, at the moment, 5.2 metres," he said. "Anyone building a new house had to have a floor level of 5.7 metres. This flood was nearly 6.5 metres. So, someone could have built a brand-new house close to the river, had full insurance and still had this water through the house. 'It's something that we can't control. You can't not live near the river." Sam says with the level of damage seen in the homes and businesses of Taree, insuring "is going to get worse, not better".
ABC News
5 days ago
- ABC News
Mud muster helps flood affected Taree
Hundreds of people were expected to spend Saturday cleaning up in Taree, adding to the efforts already seen across the flood-ravaged region. The "Mud Muster", a major volunteer mobilisation project being coordinated out of the Taree SES headquarters, has been led by locals.
9 News
5 days ago
- 9 News
State warned to brace for drenching over the coming week as first cold front of winter hits
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here West Australians are no strangers to a bit of bad weather with a tornado hitting Bunbury and a microburst in Perth Hills in the past year alone. After a warm end to autumn, Perth's first cold front of winter is set to hit this WA Day long weekend. (9News) But, according to the experts, the next round is imminent and residents are being urged to get their homes ready. "We've started to see that the high pressure system to the south of the state that has kept a lot of these early season cold fronts at bay is starting to weaken," Gianni Colangelo from the Bureau of Meteorology said. Parts of the state are set to get drenched with a month's worth of rain over the next week, up to 100 millimetres, but forecasters can't say exactly where will be hardest hit. With the first cold front of the season due to hit on Monday, WA Day, authorities are urging people to act over the weekend. Parts of the state are set to get drenched with a month's worth of rain over the next week, up to 100 millimetres but forecasters can't say exactly where will be hardest hit. (9News) "It's time now to clean up around your home and also around your yard," Commissioner Craig Waters from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said. "To make sure that you've trimmed back all the trees that are overhanging your property, also making sure that your gutters are clean, you're checking the roof to make sure you don't have any loose tiles." Last year, SES volunteers responded to more than 1000 calls for assistance, spending an average of three and a half hours at each property, often for damage that could have been prevented. Last year, SES volunteers responded to more than 1000 calls for assistance, often for damage that could have been prevented. (9News) "It's time that we all took time to prepare ourselves, prepare your homes, do what you can to make the job of our State Emergency Service and other volunteers a lot easier," Emergency Services Minister Paul Papalia said. The front will extend from the north-west cape to the south-east and is expected to last three days. national Weather News Weather Western Australia Perth Rain Thunderstorm CONTACT US Auto news: Google Gemini AI assistant coming to new cars in 2025.
