Let's get more now on the major flood situation in New South Wales. Steve Jones lives in Dungog, a town in the Hunter region, which was tragically affected by flash flooding in 2015 a one in one-thousand-year event which actually saw his home of 36 years washed away. Ten years later, he still lives in Dungog and says this rain has been intense.
00:00I've tipped out roughly 200mm out of the gauge out of my backyard, so she's been coming down pretty well.
00:13And so from what you can tell, does it look like river levels are back up to around what they were in 2015 or not that high?
00:22Well to be perfectly honest with you, I have not ventured out of the house.
00:28I have stayed home and not contributed to any traffic around that area.
00:38Yeah, I guess that's the responsible thing to do. So describe for us what happened to you back in 2015.
00:45Well, that's a bit of a story I suppose, but basically from 2 o'clock in the morning,
00:57the rain was absolutely belting down.
01:07Worse than what we've had this time I think.
01:11Although that wasn't for as long.
01:15And then all of a sudden the creek came up out the back and there's still a conjecture as to how or why that happened.
01:27Considering that the flood level in the actual river was actually down on what it usually was.
01:41And so were you in the house when water started coming through the yard or had you got out of the house by that stage?
01:49Yes, yes, yes.
01:51No, we were in the house and we were still in the house.
01:55As a matter of fact, I carried three of the dogs across through the flood water across to the tyre service.
02:05It got washed away or got got blooded out.
02:09That was a strong current and it almost washed me away.
02:21My wife, she ended up in the tree and she was rescued by my son and one of the young fellows from down the road.
02:33Yes.
02:34And yeah, that was, it was pretty, pretty horrific at the time.
02:39Yeah.
02:40So considering the trauma that she went through back then, what's it like kind of dealing with something like this with the rivers rising up again?
02:52Well, I feel for, you know, I feel for those that are obviously affected again.
02:59A couple of, a couple of friends of mine who lived down on the Avalanche Street or Hook Street area.
03:09They, they're obviously being affected again, but they're, they're okay as far as I know.
03:18Yeah.
03:19So some people have been evacuated in town?
03:21Yeah.
03:22Yeah.
03:23I think my, uh, mother-in-law, uh, my, uh, stepdaughter, uh, took, uh, my mother-in-law down to, uh, Basie with her.
03:33And, uh, uh, uh, she had to bring her back up here to Dungog.
03:37She was in the hotel club annoying everyone today, apparently.
03:42Which I've only used to heard about.
03:44Then how, uh, she's gone back down to Basie with her again now.
03:48So until the, uh, until this is over.
03:51Yeah.
03:52Uh, I think we've got some, uh, fresh pictures up of Dungog now.
03:55I don't know if you can see, can you see them on your monitor?
03:58Yeah, I can see, yeah, I can see that, yeah.
04:00Yeah.
04:01So you can get a bit of an idea of the river levels.
04:04And so, yeah, what do you make of those levels that you see there?
04:08Uh, well, that's, uh, that's over near the river line.
04:14Uh, over, um, yeah, uh, yeah, roughly the same.
04:20Uh, but that's not flowing like.
04:23Like it was in 2015.
04:25Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:27And so, yeah, Dungog really seems to cop it.
04:32You've got Mile Creek and the Williams River meet in town.
04:37Is that usually where it's the worst, where they actually meet?
04:40Or is it mainly just from Mile Creek spilling over its banks?
04:44Yeah.
04:45It was a Mile Creek that came up in their backyard that, uh, came up to the house.
04:50Uh, and, and, and knocked, uh, knocked all their houses over and, and, uh, floated my sons away.
04:59So, um, yeah, that was the, the house that you saw was floating across the road.
05:05That was my sons there, uh, in that shot.
05:09And we were on the top side of that and just completely flattened it.
05:13Yeah.
05:14Took everything with, helps with it.
05:16Yeah.
05:17Yeah.
05:18And so the town does really cop it in these flood situations.
05:20But what was the spirit like in town, uh, in, uh, after that 2015 flood and getting back on your feet?
05:26Oh, everyone, everyone just got together and, uh, did what they had to do.
05:31And, uh, that's what you do.
05:34Uh, everyone just bands together and, uh, yeah, um, great help from, uh, uh, particularly from Bruce Clark,
05:45who, God rest your soul, um, just passed away only 12 months ago.
05:49Um, uh, put us up and, uh, same in the other pub up the top and, uh, and what have you.
06:00But, uh, yeah, everyone just gets together and does the right thing, you know?
06:05Yeah.
06:06Some good spirit there.
06:07And has the rain eased up today a bit?
06:09Yeah.
06:10It has eased up a little bit, but, uh, it is still coming down at times.
06:15It's coming down again now.
06:16Yeah.
06:17I'm saying too, yeah.
06:18Yeah.
06:19Well, okay.
06:20Uh, hopefully it doesn't come down like it did, uh, last night and the river, the river
06:23goes down there.
06:24Okay.
06:25Yeah.
06:26Last night, it must have, must have, must have belted down last night.
06:29Cause, uh, yeah, like I say, we've got another, uh, another 90 mil, uh, in, uh, a matter of
06:37about 15 hours.
06:38Yeah.
06:39But the script is stuff that just goes out there, too.
06:42Right now.
06:43They.
06:45And then, uh, bucks.
06:47I made the fact, uh, new details on the sgged order code.
06:48Yeah.
06:49So, uh, the credit card numbers came out, but, uh, Jack does not 1000 be defeated.
06:51So, of course, I'm lookin' to count the list of results today and we still get what kind of
