Australia Flooding
- Chaelyn Soriano
- Nov 4, 2022
- 2 min read
Days of heavy rainfall caused a flood in Australia in late October 2022. This amount of extensive flooding had not been seen since 1961 and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology even referred to it as “life-threatening”. New South Wales received nearly 40 inches of rain in a week and already exceeded the average annual autumn rainfall in just those 7 days. The worst-affected areas saw rain totals up to 5 times the October monthly average in just 4 days. From October 16 to October 23, Sydney, a city in New South Wales, received 16-24 inches of rain which is already 40% of its annual amount. On October 20, The Warragamba Dam in Sydney overflowed and it was expected to continue overflowing for at least another week, which was threatening highly populated areas.
As a result, many areas resembled an inland sea and this weather was described as a “record breaking statewide flood event”. The floods submerged roads, trees, & hundreds of houses, stranded cattle, and cut off towns. By October 28, the State Emergency Service received more than 23,000 calls for help but only got to respond to 13,000. At least 4 people died in the massive Australian floods, and about 40,000 people were forced to evacuate from their homes. Because of the record-setting bushfires that hit the continent in 2019-2020 and now the catastrophic flood, many communities and residents felt like they reached a breaking point after the life changing back to back disasters. Many Western Sydney suburbs remained evacuated until October 29 to October 31. By that date, insurance companies had received nearly 29,000 damage claims. The damage is estimated to be at least $368 million USD after the initial assessment of the claims.
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