Northern Rivers local calls for military assistance amid severe flooding

Benjamin Berry pleaded for the state government to send more resources to northeast NSW in a video posted to Instagram on Friday, March 4.

Mr Berry said the region desperately needs more professional emergency services, supplies such as food and water, military assistance and better coordination between different services.

Together with other locals, Mr Berry has been helping with the "guerilla emergency response" to rescue people from flooded buildings in Ballina and Lismore over the past few days.

"We had guerrilla guys on our boats who have been stood down, firefighters still doing rescues, but with no resources, no comms, nothing. Outside of the system," he said in the video.

"We've got nurses turning up to evac centers, filling their first aid kits with what they can scavenge from friends and family or what they can pay for at pharmacies. This is ridiculous. This is not Australian."

Mr Berry called for more "skilled human resources" because currently "the people who are recovering from this crisis are the ones doing the recovery".

The Northern Rivers man called for more resources such as food and water, pointing out that the town of Mullumbimby is completely without water as well as food and fuel.

"Right now, Mullumbimby is out of water. Water is not a safety issue, it's a life and death issue. They have no water. We're carting water into them - that can't continue. Water sustains human life. It's literally what we need to survive. We need to get water there. The government needs to help us get water there," he said.

In addition to help from the government and emergency services, Mr Berry said the military also needs to get involved since the situation is so dire.

"We need to engage the military. We need to get grunts on the ground. I've got a lot of friends, they call themselves grunts. They want to be here. They're asking, how do we get there?" he said.

"There's guys here who are working just in civilian clothing. They're part of the military. They want to be here. We need to get them here on the ground today. Yesterday, we need them here yesterday."

Lastly, Mr Berry said there needs to be better coordination between various emergency services as currently "all the agencies are doing their own thing".

"They need to tell us what they're doing. No one knows what the government's doing yet. There's no central point of contact. That's what you need in an emergency. You need a chain of command and a central point of contact. Just give us that. Please give us something," he said.