Skip to Content

News

Home>Weather News>Tragic vision of honeymoon house floating away as relentless NSW rain continues

Search Icon

Tragic vision of honeymoon house floating away as relentless NSW rain continues

Anthony Sharwood

This is the terrible moment a house sailed off down the swollen Manning River near Taree on the NSW Mid North Coast, as extreme rain and flooding continue to lash eastern parts of Australia's most populous state.

The house was reportedly from Mondrook, a small town a few kilometres up the river from Taree, and was inundated before it broke its foundations and floated off.

It appears that the young couple who lived in the house were due to get married this Saturday and have lost everything. A GoFundMe page has been set up, and at the time of this story's publication, has almost reached the $30,000 target.

According to the page, the couple, Joshua and Sarah, also sadly lost their pets. Weatherzone has approached locals for more information on this heartbreaking story, and will keep you updated if we hear more.

As for the weather...

The Mid North Coast has been the epicentre of this extreme rainfall event. It's one of the wettest places in Australia outside the tropics, so extreme rain events like this are far from unheard-of.

Nonetheless, the rainfall tallies in recent days have been pretty staggering. For example:

  • Smoky Cape, 150 km or so north of Taree, received 350 mm in the 24 hours to 9 am, Saturday morning.
  • A tick under 250 mm of rain fell at Taree Airport in the two days to 9 am, Saturday morning.
  • Taree's average March rainfall is 165.2 mm, which makes it the westtest month of the year.
  • This March to date, it has received 403 mm, as of Saturday morning.
  • But more than 7mm has fallen so far on Saturday. So by Sunday morning, it will officially be the wettest March on record for the large town of 26,000 people.

Image: Heartbreak on their wedding day. Source: @fergs_wander_oz on Instagram.

Meanwhile the extreme weather has since moved south from the Mid North Coast through the Hunter region and towards Sydney, as predicted.

Sydney's Golden Slipper race meeting at Rosehill Gardens was called off early in the day, and torrential rain then fell all day across the city before briefly easing off in many suburbs around 6 pm.

Sydney's Observatory Hill station in the CBD received 92.4 mm of rain between 9 am and 6 pm while there was 99.2 mm at the airport and 84 mm at Sydney Olympic Park.

There are numerous flood warnings in place around the state, as well as for Sydney rivers including the Georges, Nepean and Hawkesbury. Authorities said there have been 500 flood rescues and urged people to avoid driving or wading through floodwaters.

A road weather alert remains in place for all Sydney suburbs.

Rain has also been heavy west of Sydney in the Blue Mountains, and by early afternoon, it appeared likely that Warragamba Dam - Sydney's largest reservoir - would begin to let water through its its spillway as it neared capacity.

Official confirmation came from a WaterNSW spokesperson later in the afternoon.

WaterNSW later announced that spills were also likely at Nepean, Cataract, Cordeaux and Avon dams.

Keep up to date with all NSW warnings here.

Note to media: You are welcome to republish text from the above news article as direct quotes from Weatherzone. When doing so, please reference www.weatherzone.com.au in the credit.