Residents of the Hunter have begun to take stock after the most recent stretch of rain brought widespread flooding about the region.
Roads have been left devastated by the damage of rising waters, cutting off some residents from home as the extent of the fallout becomes clear.
Wollombi resident Rachael Thornton told the Newcastle Herald yesterday that the town is almost unrecognisable, leaving people stranded on properties or incapable of returning home to begin the arduous task of cleaning up.
"It's just absolute devastation, the private roads, driveways and council roads have been completely destroyed and washed away," she said.
"People can't get out, families are stuck and others with babies that evacuated now can't get back - it's awful."
More on this issue: Wollombi Tavern goes under as flood level moves towards 2007 Pasha Bulker storm height
At the height of last week's inundation, the NSW State Emergency Service had ordered upwards of 85,000 people to evacuate or prepare to leave areas likely to flood or to become isolated as severe weather drenches parts of the state.
The Hunter River at Singleton peaked in the early hours of Thursday morning last week around 13.71 metres, exceeding the last flood event in that area in March at 13.15 metres. Similarly, the Wollombi Brook peaked at 9.11 metres, above the March 2022 flood event, and around a metre above the area's 1952 flood event.
At Maitland, the Hunter River reached as high as 10.41 metres at Belmore Bridge on Friday, and around 2.90 metres at Raymond Terrace.
Meanwhile, on the coastline, two people are lucky to be alive after they were washed by a wave from the Nobbys breakwall in big surf on Monday morning, a senior Hunter paramedic says.
Emergency crews were called to the popular walking track about 8.45am where they found a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s with multiple injuries.
They had been washed from the breakwall by a large wave and retrieved before NSW Ambulance paramedics took them to John Hunter Hospital with suspected broken bones, in a stable condition.
