By Sarah Keoghan
Sydneysiders have been urged by the State Emergency Service to stay at home if possible and to avoid flooded roads as heavy rain lashes the city.
The NSW SES has issued multiple evacuation orders in the city’s south and the Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning stretching from Morisset near Newcastle to Merimbula on the state’s South Coast.
The request to stay home on Thursday came as the SES issued evacuation orders for parts of Chipping Norton in Sydney’s south-west, as well as for Woronora and Bonnet Bay in Sydney’s south, and parts of Camden.
Residents in low-lying parts of Woronora and Bonnet Bay were urged to evacuate by 11.30am. The SES urged people to stay with friends or family where possible. For those who can’t, evacuation centres have been established, including at Club Menai.
Evacuation warnings were also issued for Camden and the Picton CBD, where the SES told residents to identify a safe place to go with friends or family. The warnings came as trees fell and caused traffic diversions.
One of the fallen trees in Manly also brought down power lines. At 1.40pm, Ausgrid reported more than 2700 sites were affected by power problems. Outages in suburbs including North Manly, Brookvale and Frenchs Forest were attributed to trees over power lines as the cause.
NSW SES acting Commissioner Daniel Austin said the weather event was moving very quickly and flash flooding was occurring within the space of 45 minutes. He added that the agency had responded to more than 680 requests for assistance as a result of the weather system and 25 flood rescues had been undertaken.
“The majority of [rescues were a] result of flash flooding and people being caught out by significant downpours of rain, particularly in the Sydney Basin and also through the Illawarra,” he said.
He warned Sydney residents had a “long way to go” before the system cleared. “Even as it moves out of some parts, as we said before, there is a real risk of riverine flooding.
“We really ask the community to remain vigilant, to be aware of their surroundings, to stay across the warnings as they need to be.”
On Thursday morning, a man had to be rescued by the SES after being swept away in floodwaters at Devlins Creek in Epping, in Sydney’s north-west. Two NSW SES crews were sent to find the man, who is now safe and well.
Sydney passed its mean annual rainfall of 1213mm on Thursday morning, recording 1223.8mm in just over three months.
The city had its wettest March on record and its wettest 16-day period on record between late February and early March, Weatherzone said.
“Only time will tell if 2022 can challenge Sydney’s wettest calendar year on record, which was 2194mm in 1950,” Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said.
In the 24 hours to 5.30am on Thursday, the SES received 585 requests for assistance, 348 of which were within the Greater Sydney region.
Before the rescue at Epping, seven flood rescues were reported by the SES across Sydney and the state’s south-east during the same 24-hour period. At Pittwater Road in Dee Why, a video showed water being pushed out of a drain and flooding the footpath and road.
Meanwhile, the SES said a pump in the Caltex Refinery in the suburb of Kurnell failed early on Thursday, spilling oil and diesel onto roads and mixing with floodwaters.
Residents reported smelling petrol across the suburb.
The SES said the pump failure at Australia’s largest fuel import terminal was attended to by emergency services, who were managing the spill and working to prevent contamination. The incident resulted in urgent road closures in and around the Kurnell township.
Fire and Rescue NSW assured residents there was no risk of danger as fuel ran across the roads.
The Sutherland Shire appeared to be one of the hardest-hit areas of the latest deluge. The evacuation warning for Woronora and Bonnet Bay was issued about 5.30am on Thursday.
The SES asked residents and business owners in those areas to begin gathering essential and valuable items and to prepare to leave as early as possible.
The weather bureau forecast the Upper Nepean River would reach major flood levels at Menangle, in the state’s Macarthur region, on Thursday evening.
The bureau is also predicting the Georges River to reach major flood levels by late Thursday afternoon. Minor to major floods are expected at the Woronora River.
A minor to moderate flooding warning is also in place for the Nepean, Hawkesbury and Colo rivers from Thursday morning onwards and the bureau is forecasting major flooding at Liverpool and Milperra on Thursday afternoon.
The weather bureau reported 107mm of rain fell at the Cronulla South Bowls Club in the three hours to 1.10am on Thursday. Little Bay recorded 107mm in the six hours to 2.30am, while Lucas Heights had 57mm in just two hours to 2.40am.
Further south, Darkes Forest reported 67mm in the two hours to 4.50am.
The weather bureau is forecasting that six-hourly rainfall totals between 60 to 100mm are likely, reaching up to 140mm over coastal areas.
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2022-04-07 04:56:40Z
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