NSW flood affected communities navigate recovery

Around 1,200 homes and businesses remain without power across the mid north coast as the clean-up continues after last week's record-breaking floods.

Transcript

00:00The Prime Minister has spoken this morning about visiting the flood-affected mid-north

00:08coast of New South Wales in the Hunter region, but also announcing some extra support for

00:14flood-affected communities and more ADF personnel to come help on the ground.

00:22And Anthony Albanese said just the presence of that personnel on the ground can help give

00:28confidence to communities that are growing a bit anxious about the need for help in this

00:35clean-up as volunteers are really becoming worn out.

00:41From tomorrow in Taree, recovery centres will begin to open, so Taree will see the first

00:48one, followed by Port Macquarie, Kempsey, Maxville and Maitland.

00:54And what these centres will be able to help with is replacing those important documents,

00:59navigating tricky insurance claims and mental health support as well.

01:04There's been a real call-out for welfare checks, particularly in Taree and Kempsey.

01:11A lot of communities are still isolated.

01:13We're hearing thousands of people are still isolated today.

01:17One community that was isolated up until yesterday was Port Macquarie's North Shore.

01:21Across the water here, you can see the broken-down ferry behind me.

01:25That cable snaps during the peak of this flood.

01:28The other ferry was only brought back into service yesterday.

01:32And when we got over to that community, our local fire, he said,

01:35about 200 homes are likely affected there by this flood.

01:40And the residents were really relieved to start seeing those volunteers

01:44and supplies coming into the community.

01:47And that is just a small section of the extent of the damage from this weather event.

01:55In total, authorities are assessing 10,000 properties that are believed to have been flood damaged.

02:02So far, they've assessed about 3,000 and have found 500 are uninhabitable.

02:08And as we've heard off the back of other recent flooding along the east coast of Australia,

02:16there's these stories coming now of under-insurance or insurance in affordability,

02:22which is just an ongoing discussion in these flood-prone communities.

02:27But certainly what these communities are asking for at the moment is more support,

02:32more volunteers to help them get through this clean-up stage, Lorna.