Evacuation

Sunday June 10, 03:12 PM
About 4,000 residents in the NSW Hunter Valley are being forced to evacuate their homes amid predictions the Hunter River will breach its levee.
The State Emergency Service (SES) on Sunday afternoon issued an evacuation order for residents of central Maitland, South Maitland and Lorne following revised predictions that floodwaters would peak at five centimetres above the levee by 9pm (AEST).
Residents were being advised to be out of their homes by 8pm, SES spokesman Philip Campbell said."The revised flood peak of 11.4 metres is expected by 9pm and that will cause the levee to over-top," Mr Campbell said.About 5,000 people in the Maitland and Singleton areas have been told to evacuate since Saturday.
But after three days of severe storms battering parts of the state, emergency services are bracing themselves for the worst of the flooding still to come.
Upstream of Maitland, the swollen Hunter River has already closed the New England Highway at Branxton.Further south at Tuggerah Lakes on the NSW Central Coast, high flood waters have forced 400 residents out of their homes on the western shore.
Earlier, Mr Campbell said waters were waist deep in some of the already flooded properties in the Hunter and Tuggerah Lakes regions, with those in the lowest-lying areas inundated up to roof level.
"Those people in those areas have been evacuated well and truly ahead of time and given sufficient notice to remove all their valuables," Mr Campbell said.