The first warning came through on Sunday.
Heavy rainfall – for the second time in a fortnight – was lashing central west New South Wales, from Mudgee in the north to Albury in the south.
The Belubula River at Canowindra was flooding at a level not seen in more than 70 years. Flooding was expected to be worst at the nearby township of Eugowra early on Monday morning.
When the rain came it came down hard. The mayor of Orange, Jason Hamling, was at home on Sunday night when it started “teeming down”. “It came rolling through and the country was already saturated,” he said.
Then, the Wyangala Dam spilled, releasing torrents of water into the nearby Lachlan River. Hamling watched footage that showed the moment a tidal wave came rushing at the rate of 230,000 megalitres a day.
“It was mind-boggling,” he said on Tuesday. “I thought, it’s going to move its way down the system … that water’s got to go somewhere.”
It did. At 6.14am on Monday, the NSW SES issued a snap order for Eugowra, a little town of about 700 people 270km west of Sydney.
The river was rising faster than anticipated. Low-lying areas along the Mandagery Creek were told to evacuate immediately and find alternate accommodation.
By the time an emergency warning was issued for the whole township, it was too late to leave.
Instead, residents were urged to move to “as high above ground as possible”. Hundreds waited to be rescued from their rooftops while others clung to trees.
It was estimated a fifth of the community – 159 people – were evacuated in boats and helicopters. Some 222 were rescued state-wide in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning.
Aftermath of overnight flooding at Eugowra, 📷 taken earlier today with 120mm of rain falling in the Central West overnight. Flooding has affected #Eugowra, #Parkes, #Molong & #Forbes. Working alongside emergency partners, we are sending as many resources possible & 11rescue 🚁 pic.twitter.com/5mpYUJJgAd
— NSW SES (@NSWSES) November 14, 2022
When the water receded on Tuesday afternoon it revealed the full scale of devastation.
Whole houses had been pulled from their foundations and strewn across the roads. Covered in mud and plants they sat next to cars, spun onto their sides, their windows shattered. In between lay the bodies of cats and dogs – people’s pets that had been swept away.
“The eastern side of the town looks like total carnage. Driving down the street it’s like a war zone,” resident Mat Reid said. “A lot of people are sleeping in their cars … there’s still no water or power.”
Reid and his wife, both ex-police officers, spent Tuesday helping their community, driving people to safety in Orange and saving pets left in houses.
“We took one lady to meet her son in Parkes, she was rescued this morning at 8.30am with a tractor. She had been floating on her mattress overnight,” Reid said.
The woman had gone to get into her car, turned behind to check the house, and before she knew it her vehicle had been carried away. It came up to her waist within seconds. Her car was found in the centre of the town – 4km away.
“She was traumatised. She had been sitting on this bed all night with these black bugs crawling all over her,” Reid said. “When we came into Parkes, the bridge is one way, she had another anxiety attack and wanted to get out. She was nervous about crossing the water.”
Another woman had been held by a police officer in a tree for hours as shipping containers rushed past them. They were worried one would take them out.
The creek rose from 2.5 metres on Sunday afternoon to peak at just over 9.75 metres by 8.30am on Monday.
Reid said everyone at the evacuation centre was talking about the wave of water that hit within seconds – like an inland tsunami.
“The first wave came through around knee-high, and then the second one came, it was a massive volume of water, up to their armpits,” he said.
“Watching it come across paddocks, it was a wall of water. People had no option but to get up on their roofs. That’s how quickly it came at us.”
Made it into town this morning, heart breaking. Made so much harder as no phone , internet service to contact staff, neighbours, friends @Telstra . I’m on top of a hill. #Eugowra pic.twitter.com/4p7LWbDgiR
— Tess Herbert (@gundamaincattle) November 14, 2022
On social media, community members have shared a spreadsheet noting who had been found and where they were now.
Slowly, most of the names were marked marked “safe”. But some, highlighted in red, were still unaccounted for.
Dianne Smith, 60, was last heard from at 9.30am on Monday when flood waters had surrounded her car near the town’s pool. Ljubisa Vugec, 85, was missing too – police said he was last seen at a home in Evelyn Street about 9am on Monday.
Joe Valentine had been listed as missing although one post on social media on Tuesday night suggested he may have been located at the showgrounds.
The waiting was suffocating. Their families, desperate to hear from them, shared pictures on social media.
Others started the clean-up. Nerida Cuddy was waiting out the flood waters in Canowindra, where the river peaked at 5.79 metres on Monday morning – the highest level in more than seven decades.
She said her town had been awash “in a way that even the oldies couldn’t remember”.
“Friends had water running through their shops and galleries, our shop’s big shed was a dirty swimming pool, several friends had waist-deep water in their homes,” she said. “It feels so heavy in my heart.”
By Tuesday, a crew of locals made up of the fire brigade, high school students and a teacher were helping to assess properties for damage.
Further north, David Thompson woke at 5am on Monday to the sound of rainfall. Soon after, his house was inundated knee-deep with water. The family lost everything.
“I’ve never seen water come up like it did,” he said. “We had 10 minutes to get out. Everything is just so full you get a big rain event and it just goes, there’s nowhere to soak in. We’re shocked. It’s never flooded where we are.”
About 100mm of rain hit Thompson’s catchment, off Billabong Creek in Parkes, where dozens of houses were damaged.
There was no time for an emergency warning to be issued – the water was already lapping at his door.
“We were isolated for half a day, the main bridge into town washed away,” Thompson said on Tuesday.
“I’ve been telling my parents to do a spring clean, they will be now. There’s nothing left in the house at all … no floor coverings. I don’t know what to do.”
Orange, the largest regional centre, was acting as a safe haven for displaced residents from the isolated communities of Molong, Canowindra and Eugowra.
About half of the 200 people sheltering at Eugowra’s showgrounds – the only dry spot in town – were airlifted to Orange. A makeshift helicopter landing pad had been set up on the oval in Molong with flashing lights.
Amid those rescued from roof-high waters was those rescued was a dog in a home and a couple stranded on top of an old motel.
There was another string of evacuation orders for Forbes on Tuesday with river levels rising “faster than originally forecast”, meaning, Hamling said, it would be a long road ahead.
“Months down the track, they’ll still need help,” he said. “Four or five years ago we were crying out for water – now it’s totally the opposite.”
