The flood situation in Deniliquin and surrounding areas has been personally inspected by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.
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The Premier was in Deniliquin on Wednesday to get an update on the efforts, and meet with staff and volunteers providing flood assistance and recovery efforts.
Mr Perrottet was flanked by Deputy Premier Paul Toole MP and Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience and Minister for Flood Recovery Stephanie Cooke.
Other dignitaries involved in the tour of the Deniliquin Airport emergency operations centre and the Deni Ute Muster site base camp were NSW Member for Murray Helen Dalton and Edward River Council Mayor Peta Betts.
The Premier was briefed on flood damage and future predictions, and also took time to meet the men and women leading the operations behind the scenes for the local area and neighbouring regions.
Mr Perrottet briefly met with local and visiting media, but directed all questions to Mr Toole.
“When you look at the southern part of the state, we are seeing significant flooding,” Mr Toole said.
“This is an opportunity for both the Premier and myself, and the minister, to come down here directly and have a look at what is happening.
“It’s devastating, people are losing their homes. And you’ve got to look at a lot of our farming community around here at the moment.
“There’s a lot of water lying around, there’s a lot of crops that are starting to fall over as well and you can even see in some areas crops are starting to rot from the bottom.
“What’s more devastating is the fact that these are peoples’ livelihoods, their businesses.
“We were looking at a bumper harvest and now it’s looking as though that will be taken away.”
Mr Toole said the government is still working on support packages to assist affected residents.
“The first thing is obviously around responding to the initial disaster,” he said.
“The New South Wales Government has responded to flood impacted communities now on a number of occasions this year, and it’s something that I wish we weren’t actually talking about or having to do.
“There’s no doubt here in the southern part of the state there will be a lot of support required, not only for our farming community but also for councils to be able to rebuild roads that have been impacted. And there are people who have lost their homes.
“We’ve got all government agencies down here working alongside the council to be able to respond to the needs of the community right now. That’s our main focus.
“Unfortunately it looks like there may be another trough coming this way in the next couple of days, so there is a bit of a wait and see.
“I think its evident that the community has been very well led by the Mayor. She has been out sandbagging, and I think that it just goes to show the community spirit that is here.
“It’s very strong. There’s a lot of volunteering taking place and at the moment it’s to have a look at the impacts of the initial flooding, keep people safe and then the response from that will be the next phase.”
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority began flood mitigation efforts by increasing releases from the Hume Dam as early as May this year, but local stakeholders suggested then the releases might not have been large enough given the predicted La Nina conditions.
When Mr Toole was asked what more could be done to lessen the impacts, he said it was “hard to say”.
“I mean, unfortunately, the ground is saturated right across the state.
“It doesn’t take much rainfall and you’ve only got to see some heavy showers of rainfall in the right location and rivers will climb very quickly.
“We see flash flooding occurring within the area, so you know its very difficult to predict as to where those clouds are going to open up and where the rainfall is going to land.
“We can always look at things differently for each disaster. Maybe we are better prepared but unfortunately mother nature is one of those beasts we cannot control.
“I think you have a lot of local landholders on the ground - they understand how water moves, they understand historical patterns of weather.”
Mr Toole said any flood mapping from this event will be a guide for development and planning in the future, as it has done with previous floods.
“It’s important, when we are planning, that we are not just building things at levels that are okay for today. We have to be looking at ways to improve.
“We have to look at lifting roads and bridges where communities and towns are cut off from their access.
“So it’s important that local knowledge is working with local councils - it’s critical to actually getting that right”.
The touring party completed their trip with a visit to the flood affected town of Moama on Wednesday afternoon.