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Sandbags line the pub in the main street of Picton where residents have been on standby on an evacuation warning issued on Saturday night when surrounding creek levels were rising.
Ellie Crump who manages the Picton Hotel on Argyle Street said she was monitoring the flood warnings on Sunday.
Shops in the town centre of Picton have sandbags down as further storms could see the area flooded.Credit:Dean Sewell
“We’ve got sandbags and some boards up as well just in case, so we are not caught off guard as we have been in previous years,” she said.
“We just want to be on top of this. Water levels were up last night, they’ve gone down this morning and the rain has stopped for now thankfully, and we are just keeping an eye on how things go throughout the day.”
Wollondilly Shire Council mayor Matt Gould said a severe storm dropped close to 50 mm of water on the town in an hour.
“That caused a rapid increase in the height of Stone Quarry Creek and there was an hour when we were very concerned that we were going to have inundation through the town centre and there was an evacuation warning issued,” he said.
“Fortunately it has gone down a bit today [Sunday] but we are still very concerned there is the possibility of severe thunderstorms later this afternoon that could drop between 70 and 140 mm of rain and if that was to happen we would be looking at a situation where inundation of Picton town centre is likely.”
Picton resident Lyn Davey’s property backs onto the Stone Quarry Creek which has threatened to flood in recent days.Credit:Dean Sewell
Lifetime Picton resident Lyn Davey said she had been watching Stone Quarry Creek rise behind her house in recent days and is prepared to evacuate with her car and a computer.
A trampoline lies discarded in the creek after washing up 12 months ago and a subdivision is going ahead nearby despite local concerns about its location near the creek.
Ms Davey remembers when the creek rose into her yard and licked the house in 2016. A caravan floated through a nearby graveyard at St Mark’s church that year, smashing through about 50 heritage gravestones, “knocking them down like dominoes”.
“I spent the next couple of years fund-raising $56,000 to replace them because the insurance at the church didn’t cover it,” she said.
Residents including Ms Davey’s 85-year-old father have been helping sandbag the church in the hope of protecting it from similar destruction.