About 450km inland of Wollongong, whole towns have been swallowed by swollen rivers, just three years after the same rivers ran dry during one of the country's worst droughts on record.
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Water has swept away homes, people, pets, and cars in regional towns like Forbes, Eugowra, and Walgett, where unrelenting rainfall meant rivers devoured everything in their path.
Communities in Western NSW battling flood fatigue have no reprieve on the horizon. The floods were officially declared a natural disaster in mid-September, and are expected to continue into 2023.
As communities to the west suffer, Illawarra locals have packed their bags and heeded the call to arms, catching planes, helicopters, boats and trucks to join an army of care in the flood zone.
Facing the unimaginable
State Emergency Services volunteers and staff from Wollongong, Dapto, Shellharbour and Nowra are part of the largest SES flood response in the state's history, dropping everything in their own lives to assist communities engulfed by water.
SES Wollongong Deputy Unit Commander Andrew Short was deployed to the flood-ravaged town of Eugowra last week, where initial estimates suggested in the town of only 750 people, 216 homes were damaged by flood water.
On the evening of November 13, the Mandagery Creek at Eugowra doubled in height, prompting 150 calls for flood rescues after the town was hit by an inland "tsunami".
Mr Short flew into Eugowra via helicopter, and said the moments waiting in the sky, not knowing what he was flying into, were torturous.
"We saw the number of flood rescues coming in, there was no communication in the town, so we got in the helicopter not knowing what to expect," he said.
When he arrived, Mr Short said there was no time to consider the scale of the disaster - they just found flooded streets and started evacuating people who had already faced the unimaginable.
"We found an elderly person who couldn't walk, absolutely sobbing, who had watched her pets drown," he said. "She was so distraught."
From our firefighters to our helicopter crews
Mr Short is just one of dozens of Illawarra locals who have lent their time, energy and expertise to the flood response, from local fire fighters to Wollongong's Toll helicopter crew.
Wollongong-based firefighter and water-rescue technician Stuart James has just come off his fourth deployment to flood-ravaged NSW towns, and he said staff and volunteers are battling exhaustion.
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He's been from Warren to Walgett, and to Forbes twice, after the town was hit by successive floods this month in the space of two weeks, isolating the CBD to little more than "an island".
Mr James spent hours evacuating residents, even walking five kilometres through flood water with a family of six as brown snakes glided past in the murky water.
Despite the gruelling rescues and the harrowing stories he heard from residents, there was still nothing that could have prepared him for what he saw in Eugowra, where cars were thrown around like toys.
"I can normally find something funny about just about everything, but there was nothing funny about that day," he said.
"It was horrible - it was every house you went into, you thought, 'please don't be this one'."
Exhaustion takes its toll
For Mr James and many others sent into the flood zone, the personal cost is high.
The Illawarra has more than a dozen firefighters trained in swift water rescue, and 90 per cent of them have spent time conducting evacuations, rescues and fall-out control in flooded NSW towns this year.
"I was physically exhausted - just worn out - technically you're working 12 hours a day, but you're on call all night," Mr James said.
Every week, the Wollongong SES unit alone have two or three staff deployed to disaster zones, in a constant rotation of people travelling back and forth.
With flooding expected to continue in regional NSW until next year, staff and volunteers will continue to shoulder the burden, ensuring calls for help, no matter where they are, will always be answered.
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Rosie Bensley
Illawarra Mercury trainee journalist and newest recruit.
Illawarra Mercury trainee journalist and newest recruit.
