Residents and the State Emergency Services (SES) are gearing up for possible flooding with heavy rain forecast this week. The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) have warned heavy rainfall has the potential to cause minor to moderate flooding from Sunday through to the middle of the week throughout the New England, with a flood watch issued for a number of local catchments.
River catchments expected to be affected include the Upper Macintyre River, Gwydir River and the Peel River. People living or working along rivers and streams are being warned to monitor the latest weather forecasts and warnings and to be ready to move to higher ground should flooding develop.
The government has announced its Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, with Armidale and Tenterfield included in the scheme. Further affected regions will likely be eligible for the support as ongoing rainfall is set to batter the region.
NSW Farmers have launched their Flood Appeal through its Natural Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) to assist farmers with recovery efforts as this one-in a-hundred year weather event continues to hit NSW. CEO of NSW Farmers Pete Arkle is once again concerned with the inevitable damage yet another natural disaster in NSW will have on farmers and their livelihoods.
“This is a state wide flood emergency that is continuing to evolve over the hours and days ahead of us, so in response and to support farmers across our state, NSW farmers has launched a Flood Appeal, under our Natural Disaster Relief Fund”.
“At this stage were focusing on donations to the fund to build support, and then as the impacts become clearer in the days and weeks ahead, we’ll be looking at sharing those across impacted farmers around NSW”.
“We’re seeing widespread damage to fences, to farm buildings, to vehicles and very sadly the loss of a lot of live stock so the NSW Farmers appeal will be used to really support primary producers in different ways, as they once again start the job of recovering from another natural disaster in NSW”.
Mr Arkle encourages anyone that can afford to give support to our farmers to visit the NSW Farmers website www.nswfarmers.org.au and make a donation.