Floods disaster: Chaos in NSW and Queensland as rising waters continue to wreak havoc

The unprecedented floods in northern NSW are worse than anticipated, with 34,000 people ordered to evacuate and another 310,000 warned to be ready to flee.

It comes as the whole of south-east Queensland is likely to be declared a “disaster emergency zone“, with the deadly having killed eight people.

State Emergency Service Commissioner Carlene York said workers and volunteers were “flat out” in NSW amid distressing scenes as the waters leave a trail of destruction.

“We’ve been planning for this but, yes, the rain was a lot heavier and it’s staying around longer than we had anticipated,” she told Sydney radio 2GB on Tuesday.

“Worse than we had anticipated but we’ve managed to put a lot of resources down there.”

People in South Ballina were told it was too late to leave on Tuesday morning as floodwaters hit the northern coastal town.

The SES performed 932 flood rescues across the Northern Rivers region — which encompasses Ballina — in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning.

People in other parts of Ballina have been ordered to evacuate as unprecedented flooding continues to devastate vast swathes of the State’s north coast.

There were five helicopters helping perform rescues in the Ballina region, along with 46 water rescue personnel and 500 volunteers.

The SES was getting “distressed” calls from people who couldn’t find loved ones, Ms York said.

She urged people to register the missing with the Red Cross and said seeking shelter with family and friends would ease the pressure on stretched evacuation centres, which are housing 1000 flood victims.

Ballina mayor Sharon Cadwallader said the town is doing better than some of its neighbours, with floodwaters moving slowly.

“This is a one-in-500 year flood we are experiencing. It is an unprecedented event and it is a most serious situation,” she told the Seven Network.

The crisis has engulfed the north-eastern part of the State, with multiple major flood warnings including the Tweed, Richmond, Wilsons, Brunswick, Bellinger and Clarence rivers.

The Bureau of Meteorology warned that NSW was in for more thunderstorms, heavy rain and damaging winds as extreme weather moves south along the coast.

A low pressure system is heading towards Sydney on Tuesday night with heavy rain that could cause flash flooding and potentially hazardous conditions.

Thousands of people have been made homeless on the north coast with many spending the night in evacuation centres.

Lismore remains submerged after the Wilsons River peaked at 14.4 metres at 3pm on Monday before starting to fall.

Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for and at least one man is feared dead after he went missing in floodwaters.

Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said 350,000 people in the northern rivers and north coast areas are on high alert under evacuation orders or warnings.

“Please prepare to leave at very short notice,” she said.

Emergency services were overwhelmed with calls for help on Monday with hundreds of people stranded for hours on rooftops as state and federal emergency services struggled to get to them.

Rescuers in a flotilla of dinghies and inflatables plucked stranded Lismore residents from rooftops and balconies of submerged homes.

Disaster assistance is now available in 17 local government areas.

The LGAs are Armidale, Ballina, Bellingen, Byron, Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Glen Innes Severn, Hornsby, Kempsey, Kyogle, Lismore, Nambucca, Port Macquarie/Hastings, Richmond, Tenterfield, The Hills and Tweed.

As emergency crews were overwhelmed, people pitched in to help each other.

About 45 recently arrived Fijian abattoir workers helped rescue about 60 residents from a Lismore nursing home that was inundated.

Apenisa Marau said the scene at the home was “just devastating ... the entire building was underwater”.

“It was quite terrifying trying to get those elderly people out of their homes,” he said.

In Queensland, the floods are still peaking in some areas after being hit by the most intense rainfall ever recorded.

As well as the floods claiming eight lives, at least 19,000 homes have been damaged.

There were blue skies over much of the region on Tuesday morning but major flooding is under way on the Brisbane, Logan, Bremer and Mary rivers, and Warrill Creek after the torrential downpours of the past week.

More than 1.77m of rain fell on Mount Glorious, 1.55m at Pomona on the Sunshine Coast and 1.23m at Upper Springbrook on the Gold Coast in seven days.

Brisbane copped 795mm — the city’s wettest week since records began in 1840 — with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk saying much of the wider region is devastated.

“We will get to the stage where basically the entire southeast will be declared a disaster emergency zone,” she said.

“At the moment they are doing council, one-by-one. Don’t forget Ipswich has been badly impacted as well, now Logan is experiencing it, they definitely will.

Hundreds of homes are being inundated in Logan, south of Brisbane, where the Logan River is at still yet to peak on Tuesday morning.

At Waterford, the river is 10.9m already and set to hit 11m, which is well above a major flood peak of 9m recorded in 2017.

The Mary River is also starting to drop at Maryborough after peaking at 10.3m on Monday night, 5cm above the 2017 flood level.

More than 15,000 homes in Brisbane and 3600 in Gympie have been damaged by the floods and another 43,860 properties were without power on Tuesday morning.

More than 800 schools also remain closed across the southeast and many roads are still cut by floodwaters.

The Premier said the suffering of people in the southeast and Greater Brisbane hit her personally.

“Of course it does. I love this city and to wake up and to see the rivers like this, and to see the images of people’s personal hardship and trauma ... You know, it is very tough,” she said.

Acting Senior Sergeant Andrew Howard, who is in charge of the Brisbane Water Police, said the Brisbane River and other rivers flooding across the southeast remain extremely dangerous.

“It’s unlike anything you’ll ever see as a mariner,” he said.

“The force of the water that’s pushing through there ... in some places it’s up to 10 knots ... the speed and the sheer volume of it. You just got to be very, very cautious.”

Snr Sgt Howard said the past four days have been harrowing with at least 630 water rescues made and more than 10,000 calls for help responded to across the southeast.

“It’s probably what you don’t see ... that’s what bothers you, especially when you’re operating at night time,” he said.

“We operate around the clock. We’ve seen a lot of people’s expensive ... dreams and vessels, assets, their homes, just washing away.

“We’ve evacuated a number of people vessels in distress, some of them ... we’ve just got them off the off the vessel or a pontoon before upon another vessel crashes into it, and they just watch it sink before their eyes.”

Meanwhile, a crane on a floating pontoon that broke loose from its moorings near the Story Bridge on Monday has been secured.

The incident triggered evacuations of the Brisbane River bank after authorities were concerned the crane could damage the bridge or smash into the nearby Howard Smith Wharves.