As it happened: Forbes told to evacuate as floods hit NSW Central West

Today’s floods took a toll on communities in the Central West. Two people have been reported missing. Some of our main headlines from today included:

• Molong’s pool which once glistened in a drought is now full of mud. Three years ago Molong was running out of water and the NSW Central West town struck a deal to take some from nearby Orange. On Tuesday morning, its pool was caked with mud, sticks and floating straw. Fifty volunteers were cleaning up after the water receded. Read the full story here.

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has urged Xi Jinping to remove sanctions on $20 billion worth of Australian goods. The meeting was the first between Xi and an Australian prime minister since 2016, representing a major diplomatic achievement for Albanese, coming without the requirement for any pre-emptive concessions from Australia. For the full story read here.

• Ninety-one-year-old Henry Hoswell was trapped inside his Eugowra home on Monday, when flash flooding lifted the building off its foundations and carried it 80 metres down the central western NSW street. When he turned to the back door, water had just started coming in. He then opened front door to try to get out, in time to see his car floating away. The next thing he knew, the water had lifted the house and pulled it over the other side of the road, and that’s where he found himself. Read the story here

Eugowra residents were largely uninsured as premiums grew to $40,000 a year before this week’s disaster tore houses from their foundations, leaving the now-devastated town with a colossal rebuild bill.

The federal member for Orange, the Nationals’ Andrew Gee, estimated costs at $30,000 and $40,000 a year. He said the floodplain designation across eastern Eugowra – a mostly residential area – meant “many people could not afford the astronomical flood insurance premiums”.

“The rebuilding process is going to be particularly difficult,” he told the Herald. “The bottom line is that we are going to need enormous help from the community and both levels of government. The police who worked in Lismore have told me that the devastation in Eugowra is on the same level as that.”

Cabonne Shire Mayor Kevin Beatty said one resident shared with him that his insurance premium would have been $42,000, so he didn’t pay it. “The houses here are just average houses,” Beatty said. “They’re not million-dollar houses. I’d suggest to you that the majority of the people are not insured for flood.”

Many people had lost everything, Beatty said. The floodwater had dumped dozens of cars south of the town. There were caravans at 45-degree angles. Slabs from the granite processing plant had been moved hundreds of metres. “It’s like a tornado has gone through,” he said.

Read the full story here.

As the water quickly recedes in Cowra, an army of RFS volunteers can now move in and help residents clean up.

Just hours earlier, one street was covered in water, hay bales and floating debris, but now about 20 Rural Fire Service members are hosing out homes and moving furniture into the street.

They’ll repeat the process several times before the day is out.

Cowra was among towns along the swollen Lachlan River that were hit by flash flooding overnight on Sunday.

Dramatic footage shows rescue helicopter crews helping winch to safety more than a dozen people and pets – including dogs, cats and a turtle – trapped by fast-flowing floodwaters in regional NSW.

The NSW State Emergency Service tasked the Land Rover LifeFlight Special Mission helicopter crew on back-to-back rescue missions in flood-stricken areas around Orange and Eugowra from 5am Monday.

One woman rescued from the waters reported the walls of her home - which was destroyed - had blown out from the force of the water. She managed to get to dry ground, where the helicopter picked her up.

The team airlifted 12 people from Eugowra, along with 10 dogs, two cats and a pet turtle,

About a dozen rescue aircraft descended on Eugowra, east of Forbes, as flash floods inundated the town on Sunday and Monday. More than 100 people were rescued, mostly from roofs.