However as flood waters rose, residents huddled at the end of the street watching as rapids-like flood waters gushed through the Keith Mitchell Fields and Roy Howard Oval.

There were residents new and old who came together to have a yarn about the rising waters, with some people only just meeting one another by name for the first time as they watched the end of their street transform into a white water rapids - like something out of a theme park.

As a new resident myself, I must admit to being quite perplexed to see the once grassy fields now transformed into muddy and murky floodplains.

Barry Ball has been a resident on the street for 14 years now and said his house has been standing for over 100 years.

Mr Ball joked that even though he could hear every bump in the night on his old tin roof, which felt like it might just take off during a strong gale, that it would likely outdo any of the new metal roofing in the region.

He came outside to see the flood when several of his mates showed up and started knocking on his door around 9.45pm.

"I could hear the water but I couldn't get any sleep because of that bloody thing," said Mr Ball pointing to the loud, red flashing alarm alerting to the fact that one of the town's sewerage pumps had been submerged in water.

PHOTOS: Readers share images of Bega Valley's floods

The last severe flooding event that occurred in Bega, in March 2011, was officially recorded as reaching 8.47m by the gauging station at Bega River.

The only flood larger than that in recorded history happened in February of 1971, where the Bega River was recorded to have reached 9.78m.

This time around was only considered a moderate flood. The river peaked at 7.38 metres at 11pm, before dropping below the 7m mark by 2am Wednesday March 24.

Quite interesting is the fact that six floods out of the recorded 15 on the Bega River have occurred in the month of March.

Mr Ball is one of those residents who has experienced all of the floods since 1971.

"I reckon I've seen about four of these, but the 2011 flood was a biggest one I've seen here, it felt like the '71 flood."

When asked what he thought we he came outside his property to see the state of the floods he said, "well to tell you the truth, I'm pretty used to it."

Mr Ball's response echoes the sentiment of many residents in the Bega district, with many having lived though another 14 floods since the great flood of 1971.

Peter Rogers, now 86, was on of those residents who experienced the floods of '71 on the ground. He was 35 at the time and was living in Bombala and working as an intelligence officer with Civil Defence.

It wasn't until the next day when he surveyed the area in a helicopter, that he and his team realised just how bad the flood was.

"It was certainly the worst that Bega and Bombala ever had. We evacuated 60 houses in Bombala and that was more than we had ever before in the Civil Defence.

"Everyone got soaking wet, but the public managed to put a cup of coffee on around midnight, I imagine it would have been much the same in Bega," he said.

He remembers that despite the damage that had been done, everyone was surprisingly cheerful.

"You find that everywhere you go with country people, everybody just took it in their stride, and everyone just chipped in to help."

Reports on the '71 flood record that the lives of two people were lost, numerous properties were inundated and widespread damages occurred.

It's estimated that $7million (1971 value) worth of damage occurred and electricity and phone lines were out of service.

Read more: Looking back: 1971 flood highest in Bega's history

Mr Ball on the other hand was only a boy in the 1971 floods. But despite being so young, he figured the most recent floods wouldn't come close to that of 1971 or 2011.

"It would take a big flood to get into the house, but the floods of 2011 got into my shed about a metre or two high.

"I didn't realise it was going to come up this far today because we haven't had much rain at all. It must be all coming from the mountains. The bit of rain we've had in Bega today wouldn't do this," he said.

On the way to the back of his property to check if the floods had risen up to his fruit trees, Mr Ball checked on his chickens and kindly offered to give me some eggs when his chooks were laying again.

The water was vigorously flowing behind his property as he showed me the choko vine growing marvellously over his back fence, but he assured me that he thought the worst of it was almost over.

It turned out that he was right, as the floods peaked right around the same time.

The spirit of resilience the Bega Valley residents remains strong despite floods, natural disasters and even global pandemics.

Although old and new residents all huddled around the same little patch of bitumen on Tuesday evening, there was a mutual feeling of camaraderie.

The newbies on the block were warmly welcomed with their 'introduction' flood and the well seasoned residents remained thankful their sheds would stand another day.

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