HUNDREDS EVACUATE HOMES IN FLOODED N.S.W. TOWNS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23314, 25 July 1950, Page 5

HUNDREDS EVACUATE HOMES IN FLOODED N.S.W. TOWNS

(Noon) SYDNEY, July 25. Floods and threats of flooding grip many widely separated New South Wales towns. Forced out by the rising back-waters of the Hunter River, people at Maitland are evacuating their homes for the third time in six weeks. At Moree, inland in the far north, 200 families have left their flooded homes.

, At Warren, on the Macquarie River, 100 men are keeping up a ceaseless patrol along six miles of levee banks ouside of which a sea of water 4ft, deep extends eight miles east and nine miles west of the town. Hundreds of Forbes residents are preparing to leave their homes as the Lachlan River rises threatening a worse flood than in April. The Maitland flooding is expected to be brief but, in the meantime no trains are running beyond Maitland on the north coast or Moree in the north-west. At Moree, the floodwaters are beginning to recede but the town, two-thirds of which is under water, has had the most disastrous visitation since 1907. A vast expanse of water lies across 110 miles of country from Biniguy to Collarenebri. Stock losses are reported to run into hundreds of thousands, one station alone losing GOOO sheep. Sydney’s rainfall this year, already the heaviest for CO years, is only 14.92 in. below the record wet year of 1860 when 82.76iri. was recorded—and the year has still over five months to go. Further showers are forecast.