All eyes are on rural communities west of Forbes, with floodwaters higher than in living memory and still rising.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Water levels are dropping in the township, but that only means that the flood peak is heading down the river, where farming families have been cut off from town and battling inundation for weeks.
Helicopters are providing live aerial feed of the spreading water back to the emergency operations centre in Forbes.
People, 4000 sandbags and fuel are on the way out via Condobolin, SES controller Roc Walshaw says.
"What we're trying to do is get as much help out there as we can," he said on Friday morning.
They're working to reinforce both the community levee and to monitor where water is getting through property levees, creating the risk homes might be left standing in the middle of a dam, Mr Walshaw said.
The State Emergency Service on Friday morning issued a "prepare to evacuate" for the area, their situation is being monitored.
Anne and Andrew Earney have had to build a levee around their home, always a high and dry place on their property, in the past few days.
"It's totally unbelievable," Mrs Earney said of the sheer volume and spread of the water on Friday morning - and she's lived on that floodplain all her life.
"The water is in places it's never been before, and it's still rising.
"This house has never had water under it - that we know of, it's possible it happened in '52."
The Earneys had 83mm of rain on Sunday - falls around them varied from 73mm to 103mm - and by Tuesday the water that caused flash flooding through Parkes had reached their property.
That's not through the Lachlan River or counted on any flood gauge, but comes across from the Goobang Creek.
The flood peak down the Lachlan River - the combined flows from devastating Eugowra flash flooding and record releases from Wyangala - is still to come.
"I don't know what the other side of the river's like but we are being smashed," Mrs Earney said.
Unfortunately the water around them is too deep and the ground underneath it too saturated to get to their neighbours or in to Bedgerabong itself to assist sandbagging efforts.
"We can't get to anybody, unless we get a helicopter," Anne said.
"It would be great if the Army would come downstream.
"Last week we were noticing (the choppers) this week there's so much more water and there's so many more people."
Numbers to know
- For assistance and resupply: NSW SES 132500
- Agriculture and Animal Service Hotline: 1800 814 647
- Rural Aid: 1300 327 624 or www.ruralaid.org.au/
The Earneys are working constantly to try to care for their livestock, on rapidly shrinking islands.
"Yesterday we went down and put some feed out for the sheep, we'll do that again today because it will get too hard tomorrow," Mrs Earney said.
"We put two big bales out - both are now under water.
"We put hay out where the cows are. They had a nice big dry patch yesterday, they've got the tiniest - if it's dry - patch today.
"We've got feed down there on a trailer, but at the moment the trailer is sitting in water, I thought I picked a high spot to sit the trailer.
"It's just getting bigger and bigger."
Their entire rural community is facing the same battle, and they've been working to prepare for months.
Mrs Earney's memory of flood levels is based on community events.
Bedgerabong Road was under water on Show day - August 20 - and although the water level did drop after that it came back up on Father's Day - September 4 - and they haven't had much of a reprieve since.
Last week's flood peak was higher than Mrs Earney has ever seen, the weekend's deluge unthinkable.
"Places that were sold as flood-free are flooded," Mrs Earney said.
"Everybody is doing what they can. Everybody's house is on a high spot."
Mayor Phyllis Miller says it's been flood upon flood upon flood - a widespread four to five inches of rain on the weekend 'unprecedented'.
"They've already been almost washed off the map - there is total devastation all through that area," she said on Wednesday afternoon.
"There are homes that have never had water through them that are inundated. There are crop and stock losses.
"It's been relentless and my concern is about the mental health and wellbeing of all those people have been affected.
"We are going to really have to think about how we know who's in trouble and what we're going to do about it."