Car slides down cliff - Port Macquarie News

FOR the second successive weekend, the Muswellbrook State Emergency Service (SES) unit was kept extremely busy, thanks to Mother Nature.

Crews attended a number of requests for assistance last Saturday, including a collapsing retaining wall, potential house flooding at three locations, four leaking roofs, two trees threatening to fall (one of which was struck by lightning) and a house that had lost its roof.

The latter incident, which took more than two hours to address, saw two full teams from the local unit in action.

At this site, the remaining roof trusses were removed and the exposed area was covered with tarps and secured.

During the day members of the SES were monitoring points in the river due to the amount of rain that fell in the area.

“Water levels in Upper Hunter streams did not follow regular flow patterns; it was quite unusual,” SES local controller for Muswellbrook Shire Mark Elsley said.

“There was a good flow towards the top end of the valley, however due to the dry streams, the water tended to disappear.”

The amount of water in the Hunter River at its peak was about double that of what had been experienced at Aberdeen, and Dartbrook Creek contributed only about a third of it.

There was quite a good flow in Sandy Creek just on the northern end of Muswellbrook while the peak flow at Denman was 23 per cent more than that in town.

Contributing to the flow at Denman were Muscle Creek and Ramrod Creek.

“Local runoff played a significant part in the higher than expected flows along sections of the Hunter River,” Mr Elsley said.

“These sources of additional water into the river system cannot be calculated by the SES. 

“During these types of events and also during what could be said to be normal rainfall events, farmers need to monitor their pumps and make their own determination whether or not to raise them.”

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ANOTHER BUSY WEEKEND: The Muswellbrook SES unit attended a number of requests, including a house that had lost its roof.