Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is warning the nation should prepare for a treacherous wet season as he visits the flooded New South Wales (NSW) town of Forbes, where people are dealing with the fifth inundation in 12 years.
Thousands of people in the flood-prone central western town have been impacted, with some evacuated on Friday after the Lachlan River burst its banks, inundating the city centre.
Prime Minister Albanese travelled to the flood zone on Monday alongside NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet as major flood warnings remain in place for almost a dozen rivers across the state.
“We are living in very dangerous times in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.
Relentless rain in western NSW, Victoria and Tasmania is likely to continue to cause flooding in the coming weeks, the prime minister says.
He urged people to follow warnings from emergency services, adding too many were dismissing advice to evacuate.
“(People are) saying ‘no, we’ll be right',” Albanese said.
That attitude was leading to multiple rescues in flooded regions, putting emergency personnel at risk, he said.
Perrottet said the people of Forbes were resilient, having endured five floods in the past 12 years, and reiterated that danger still loomed.
“We know over the coming week, particularly heading into summer as well, we expect more challenging weather,” he said.
“We need to keep vigilant. We need to follow the instructions.
“If it’s flooded, forget it. You wouldn’t drive through into a bushfire—don’t drive through floodwaters.”
Major flooding is expected at Echuca in Victoria and Moama, a border town in the NSW Riverina district, with water rises likely to be as bad or worse than the 1993 flood - the area’s second-biggest on record.
In Moama, some 200 residents of an Indigenous community are being evacuated, along with residents of the Moama caravan park.
Despite clear skies on the weekend in NSW, the Bureau of Meteorology’s Dean Narramore says floodwaters are still rising.
Flood warnings were continuing across inland NSW and northern Victoria, he told the ABC on Monday.
“Today, we’re going to see a number of locations peak,” he said.
Major flooding at Warren, west of Dubbo, is expected to continue, and more rain could cause further rises on the Macquarie River, threatening more severe flooding at Wellington and Narromine in the coming days.
People in South West Narrandera were ordered to evacuate before 6 p.m. on Sunday after the Murrumbidgee River’s main flood peak passed through Wagga Wagga last week and headed downstream.
Moderate flooding is expected downstream at Darlington Point from Thursday.
The Murrumbidgee has passed the minor flood level at Balranald, while major flooding is not expected to reach the town of Hay until late October, the BOM says.
Another storm system is forecast to develop over central Australia on Tuesday, bringing widespread falls of 25 to 50 millimetres over much of inland NSW and thunderstorms to eastern states by mid-week.
“This is a lot less than what we saw, but with everything now so wet and saturated, this is going to lead to renewed river level rises on many of our already flooded rivers - particularly as we get in towards that Thursday and Friday,” Narramore said.
