SES advises Bega River flood level forecast revised from 6.5m to 5.5m

Sapphire Coast SES commander Michelle De Friskbom said the Bureau of Meteorology had been confident there would be a lot of rainfall Monday evening (March 7), but due to less rainfall than expected, the peak level has been revised.

"It's an East Coast Low, it's only as predictable as what the best guesses are," she said.

Last Thursday, March 3, the Bega River peaked at 4.89m so this flood would be larger and potentially more perilous due to the already saturated grounds.

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As of 4.30pm Tuesday, The Bega River at North Bega was already at 4.95m, so the peak was likely to occur sometime Tuesday evening or into the early hours of Wednesday March 9.

The SES have had teams out most of the day doing intelligence and data gathering on some of the most impacted streets.

"They guys are out there at the moment just checking those streets, but those residents are pretty well-versed in what they need to do and they're all sort of two-storey houses and they normally move everything up from their garages," she said.

Ms De Friskbom said that while the SES were considering doing welfare checks and doorknocking, they were hesitant to do so as people started panicking more once they had seen SES workers approach them.

She also wanted to thank the whole community, which she said had been heading warnings by not crossing flood waters or taking unnecessary risks.

"We have not had to do any flood rescues down here so I'm really so thankful that people are making those smart and safe decisions and not actually attempting to drive through any flood waters," she said.

The sandbagging stations were closed at 11am today, but Ms De Friskbom said if someone was in dire need, they could contact their social media page.

All of the SES units have remained in the Bega Valley despite extensive clean-ups happen in the North of the state to ensure that the South East zone was safe first.

"A lot of our South East zone has held back sending their members until this event is over, because we just can't afford to have people away, as much as we want to, I'd love to go out there and support them, but we want to look after our own community first," she said.

The SES also wanted to advise the community that the 132500 number has been busy and experiencing wait times in excess of two hours.

If flooding assistance is required and people cannot get through on the 132500 number, please message the NSW SES Bega Valley Units FB page and they will endeavour to respond to in a timely manner.

If the emergency is life threatening, please dial triple zero (000).