RICHMOND (Australia) — Hundreds of homes were inundated in and around Australia’s largest city during a flood emergency that affected 50,000 people, officials announced Tuesday.
Ashley Sullivan, State Emergency Service manager, said that 100 people were rescued by emergency response teams overnight from cars stuck on flooded roads and homes in the Sydney region.
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The torrential rains have caused rivers to burst and dams to flood, creating a fourth flood emergency in just 16 months. This has affected parts of the city of five million people.
Evacuation orders and warnings about abandoning homes were issued to 50,000 people on Monday, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet stated.
“This event is not over. Do not be complacent wherever you may be. Please drive carefully on our roads. Perrottet stated that there is still a substantial risk of flash flooding in our state.
Overnight, the New South Wales state government declared a flood emergency in 23 areas of local government. Federal financial assistance was activated for flood victims.
Steph Cooke, Minister for Emergency Services, praised the skills and dedication of rescue crews in preventing any death or serious injury during the fourth day of the flooding emergency.
According to Jonathan How, Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist, parts of southern Sydney were hit by more than 8 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. This is more that 17 percent of the annual average for Sydney.
On Tuesday, severe weather warnings for heavy rain continued to be in effect across Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The warnings extended north to Sydney, along the coast, and into Hunter Valley.
The most severe flooding occurred along Sydney’s western and northern fringes of the Hawkesbury–Nepean river systems.
“The good news is it looks like it will be mostly dry by tomorrow afternoon but, of course we remind people that these floodwaters would remain very high well past the rain has stopped.”
“It was a lot of rain overnight, which is actually causing some rivers to peak for the second time.” It will take several days, if certainly a week to begin to see floodwaters recede,” How more.
Residents in Lansvale in southwest Sydney were shocked at the rapidity with which their area was inundated, and the increasing frequency of such flooding.
“Well, it did happen in 1986 and 1988, then it didn’t happen for 28 year and so it wasn’t happening for 2016 and 2020, and now it’s happened four times this Year,” Terry, a Lansvale resident, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television about his home being flooded.
Plans to tow the stricken cargo vessel with 21 crew members safely to open sea were thwarted by the wild weather and mountains along the New South Wales coast.
After leaving Wollongong port, south of Sydney on Monday morning, the ship lost power and was at risk of being grounded by winds blowing at 34 mph against cliffs.
Philip Holliday, chief executive of Port Authority, stated that an attempt to tow the ship by tugboats into open sea ended in failure because a towline was snapped in a 36 foot swell late Monday.
With the assistance of two tugboats and two anchors, the ship maintained its position Tuesday further from the coast than Monday. Original plan was for crew members to fix their engine at sea. Holliday stated that the new plan was to tow ship to Sydney once weather and sea conditions improve.
Holliday stated, “We are in a better place than we were yesterday.” “We are in relative safety.”
Perrottet praised the response of the tugboat crews to the rescue effort on Monday as “heroic.”
