NSW eyes flood recovery, death toll at six

Jack Gramenz and Farid Farid | March 4, 2022

The death toll from the NSW floods has risen to six after the body of a man aged in his forties was found south of Murwillumbah in the state’s north.

Police say the body was found shortly after 2pm on Friday at Byrril Creek Road near Terragon and had yet to be formally identified.

Four other fatalities occurred in flood-ravaged Lismore in recent days and a man died when his car was swept away by floodwaters on the Central Coast last week.

Floodwaters are easing but the state is not out of danger yet as attention turns to the recovery effort ahead of more bad weather forecast for the weekend.

For Shane Earl, a caravan park owner in Sackville on the Hawkesbury River, this week’s floods are an all too familiar scene of devastation.

“This is our third flood but what can you do … you get on with it, ” he told AAP by phone while observing his submerged business.

It was only a few months ago that he was fixing the damage caused at his uninsured park from last year’s flood, which he estimated to have set him back at least $200,000.

Mr Earl said he saw the early warning signs of the deluge and squarely blamed Resilience NSW, a state body tasked with disaster management, for not doing enough to mitigate damage before the inundation.

“Resilience NSW said they would come up with a plan to restabilise the banks but it was a bald faced lie. It never happened,” he told AAP.

Other flood-devastated communities, such as Lismore and Ballina in the state’s north, could also be hit with more wet weather in the coming days.

More than 280 Australian Defence Force members are being deployed to support the clean-up, working alongside about 600 police and emergency crew members.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said the state has a mammoth task ahead and “it is vital we get boots on the ground to begin the immense recovery process”.

Emergency Services and Resilience Minister Steph Cooke will also take up the role of Flood Recovery Minister.

Ms Cooke said communities “have been through a hell of a lot” and she is “determined to make sure every person gets back on their feet as quickly as possible”.

Part of that will involve finding accommodation for people who have lost their homes in the floods.

The government will use “a range of different measures” to do that, the premier said.

Amid criticism of the response and preparation for the floods, Mr Perrottet said the government has been “completely focused” on getting responders into flood hit areas, but they have to take advice about when it is safe to do so.

He said the government is “going to do everything we can to get people back on their feet”, but it’s going to be tough, and he expects there will be mistakes made during the “substantial task”.

Those will come on top of mistakes and shortfalls already made in the lead-up to the disaster that left residents stranded on roofs and towns isolated – the details of which will emerge as the government reviews and reflects on the disaster in the coming months.

“Our focus right now is not on playing the blame game,” Mr Perrottet said.

After the government has a chance to reflect on the disaster he will “resource every level of government to a level that will provide protection to the people of our state”.

While the premier has focused on the recovery he acknowledged the disaster is not yet over.

NSW SES Commissioner Carlene York gave a similar warning.

“We are not past the danger period yet. The rivers are very high, fast-flowing,” NSW SES Commissioner Carlene York said.

Over the next four days parts of NSW could see up to 100mm of rain and parts of the Hunter up to 150mm with severe thunderstorms, heavy rains and damaging winds forecast, said the BoM.

The estimated current cost of claims across Queensland and NSW is now just over $1 billion, the Insurance Council of Australia said on Friday.