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The residents and business owners of Forbes know they live in a flood town, but the consensus is this one is different.
The centre of Forbes is an island – that part is normal. What isn’t to them is the water level, and the speed at which it arrived.
Some people remain in Forbes, which has been cut off by flood water. Supplies are coming in by boat and truck.Credit:Rhett Wyman
Watching the water approach her sandbagged shopfront, Isabel’s Place cafe owner Isabel Hayley was staying put in the cut-off centre of town, where supplies are delivered by boat and truck by RFS and SES crews.
“I feel safe because I’m not here alone; there’s quite a few people here who live above shops,” she said. “There’s still a community of people here to keep each other company.”
Shop owner Martin Cahill, who has been there for 40 years, described the eventual outcome as the “great unknown”.
“With this one, we just don’t know,” he said, describing the two floods inside a fortnight as “the perfect storm”.
Born in 1951, Forbes resident Garry O’Neil lived through the last time the town was this badly flooded.
Though he can’t exactly remember the infamous 1952 event, he remembers the 1990 flood and it was “nothing like this”.
O’Neil believes his house will be flooded overnight as the water continues to rise, and he has gone to stay with a friend.
He was among residents being ferried to different parts of the cut-off town by SES and RFS crews.