Massive flooding on the mid-north coast of NSW has impacted Australia’s precious supplies of decking, flooring, pallets, and structural timber, with SES crews now working to rescue trapped residents from rooftops. It comes as flooding at Taree—81km Southwest of Port Macquarie and 317km Northeast of Sydney—has already smashed through the 1929 record levels and is showing no signs of abating. Similar flooding is impacting the Hunter.
This afternoon, Wood Central spoke to Maree McCaskill, CEO of Timber NSW. McCaskill represents a hardwood supply chain that operates extensively throughout the flooded region, and said that the record rains and rising river levels had effectively brought the timber industry to a standstill.
“The region from Bulahdelah to Port Macquarie is one of the major centres for the production of timber, with the flooding bringing the supply of logs and sawn wood, used in decking and flooring, to an absolute standstill,” McCaskill said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by the once-in-a-500-year event.”
The latest disaster comes after massive flooding smashed Lismore and the Richmond/Clarence Valleys, another region crucial to the supply chain of nation-building hardwoods. This, in turn, had a significant impact on wood supply, not just for NSW but also Queensland, after an extreme weather event in February and March 2022 saw floodwaters peak at 14.4 metres.
Speaking to the media today, SES Chief Superintendent Dallas Byrnes described the flooding as “an incredibly dynamic and escalating situation.” He said emergency service crews had conducted more than 150 flood rescues since midnight and that more calls for help were still coming through.
Chief Superintendent Byrnes said areas around Taree, Wingham and Coffs Harbour were the main priority at this stage: “We’ve got a lot of people getting rescued from rooftops and upper levels of houses. Unfortunately, some of those people were unable to be rescued last night due to the weather conditions … we’re prioritising those now, and we’ve got aviation assets in place to support that.”
“But conditions are quite treacherous, and it may be that those aviation assets cannot fly throughout the day.”
During the 24 hours to Wednesday morning, the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) responded to 887 incidents, including 118 flood rescues. In one of the more significant incidents overnight, 24 people were rescued from the flooded Pacific Highway at Ghini Ghini. NSW SES State Duty Commander, Assistant Commissioner Colin Malone, said that emergency service crews responded to rescue requests as quickly as possible.
“This is a dynamic situation, but the NSW SES and our emergency service partners are deploying every available asset to assist with these rescues,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’ve also had a large number of calls for help, and we are still assessing how best to access those locations.”
“We’ve advised those people needing assistance to move to higher ground, as we’re unable to access it by boat, road, or air due to the current weather conditions.”
