Tensions are beginning to ease across the New South Wales Northern Rivers region as flood waters start to drop along major rivers. A number of warnings still remain in place across large parts of the area as some farmers grapple with the financial impacts of the floods.
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00:00Here in Grafton, the Clarence River fell below the major flooding level mark yesterday after
00:08a top of 5.7 metres on Sunday.
00:12It's now sitting below the 5 metre mark and that has provided some relief for many communities
00:18along the Clarence River that they are finally past the worst of this natural disaster.
00:24Some areas remain steady while water levels seem to be dropping along most of those low
00:29lying communities now.
00:32Also overnight there were a number of emergency warnings that the SES has now downgraded.
00:37Those include Cars Island and the Cars Peninsula here in Grafton where people are now being
00:43told just to avoid the area.
00:46You also have further upstream at Brushgrove where people are now being told they can return
00:51to their homes with caution after an initial evacuation warning.
00:56Now the Mayor of the Clarence Valley Council says that there is still a number of issues
01:01to deal with in this local government area.
01:04In particular he spoke about the closure of Yamba Road due to minor flooding there.
01:11That is essentially cut off the community of Yamba from essential resources.
01:17He says there has been a number of deliveries that have been able to be made to that community
01:21though over the past few days with the help of emergency service vehicles.
01:26The road into Yamba is still covered in water.
01:29So while it is officially closed we are allowing emergency services through with a pilot escort
01:36and any residents that may need to get back home.
01:39Now despite no reports of major flooding to homes or businesses so far there are still
01:46a number of farms that have been affected by flooding in recent days.
01:51Now the ABC spoke to a beef farmer and a sugar cane farmer and he says he has been significantly
02:00impacted by the last few days of flooding.
02:03He is based here in Grafton.
02:04He had to move a lot of his cattle to higher ground and now he is lucky he did so because
02:10large parts of his paddocks are now inundated with water.
02:14Now the water levels have been sitting relatively high over the last few hours and have been
02:19dropping slowly compared to other major weather events and the State Emergency Service says
02:26that is largely due to high tides and large waves coming off the east coast.
02:32That is affecting certain farmers because it means large parts of their paddocks are
02:36remaining underwater for longer periods of time.
02:40It also is having a significant impact on their crops as well.
02:43Here is what that farmer from Grafton had to say.
02:47It's really sitting steady there now and I think there is more water coming down but
02:52I don't think we are going to get any further heights.
02:53It's just how long the crops are going to sit underwater for.
02:56It's how they come out of it.
02:57It's going to be a wait and see game.
02:58It will be probably 45-50% of it on our farm.
03:03We have got a 300 acre farm here and the majority of it is sugar cane.
03:06We do keep beef cattle up around the homestead, around the house here but it's mostly sugar
03:12cane and at the moment we have got 20 acres of soy being in and fingers crossed we will
03:16only lose half of it.
03:18The Federal Government announced yesterday that it was providing disaster recovery allowance
03:22payments for up to 13 weeks and those are for people who have lost or their income has
03:28been affected due to this weather event.
03:32Now in the meantime people are still having to face the impacts of this flooding emergency
03:39now and there is obviously going to be a big clean up when the waters finally return
03:44to normal.