NSW south coast hit by significant storm system

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A significant storm system is making its way across large parts of eastern Australia, with the New South Wales south coast set to cop the worst of it.

Transcript

00:00 It's pretty wet. I've got my gun boots on, raincoat on, umbrellas up. Here we go. We're

00:07 in for a really, really wet day. And the past 24 hours have been wet. So considering we're

00:12 going to expect another 150 millimetres of rain on the parts of the south coast today

00:17 as well, we're really going to be quite soaking. So I am here in the town of Bega in southern

00:22 New South Wales. This is one of the local roads here in the eastern part of the CBD.

00:26 And as you can see, it's started to be impacted by water. It's not closed and we're not aware

00:33 of any major road closures as of yet, but we have seen local council vehicles doing

00:38 their rounds, their laps around town just in case they need to put those road closure

00:42 signs up. And of course, it's nine o'clock in the morning. We've still got a really long

00:46 day ahead of us in terms of this rain. Now we have been really, really dry here on the

00:51 far south coast, been in a period of intense drought. So this rain that we've had in the

00:56 past 24 hours has been quite welcomed. It's soaked in quite nicely. It's been gentle.

01:02 But today it's a lot faster. It's a lot heavier. It's a lot denser and certainly more consistent.

01:10 So it's going to be interesting to see how the rest of the day pans out. There are also

01:14 risks associated with rainfall and in these kinds of situations, namely flooding on homes

01:20 and properties. The SES have already made a number of call outs further north up to

01:24 Wollongong and all the way down south to Eden. But the Shoalhaven seems to be quite impacted.

01:29 The one at South Nowra, from what I've read, was two people in a car on Hillcrest Avenue,

01:33 which is a known low spot in South Nowra. And we also evacuated some people from a home

01:39 in Wrights Beach where they were impacted by rising waters in St George's Basin. Locals

01:43 are hanging in there, I think, further south. Back here in Bega, yeah, it is quite wet.

01:48 I think locals are hanging in there. Further north up in the Wollongong area, the Illawarra

01:52 and Shoalhaven, I think there's a few more flood inundated homes. But down here in the

01:57 south, I think we're alright. And I think the view is that we're kind of welcoming this

02:02 rain so far. Yes, there are some concerns with it, but we've been so dry with the drought,

02:08 you know, been in a period of intense drought for quite some time, that this rain is certainly

02:14 welcomed by local farmers.

02:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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