Thousands of people were evacuated due to floods in Australia

Thousands of people were evacuated due to floods in Australia. 

Thousands of Australians fled their homes. A hospital was evacuated on Wednesday as torrential rains hit the country’s east coast.

During the extreme weather that hit late last week, 11 people have died. The severe weather submerged town centers ripped homes from their moorings, and cut power lines.

People in Sydney, which is home to more than 5 million people, will be hit by the wild storm cell later on Wednesday. It came from Queensland state and is moving down into New South Wales.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by this event,” New South Wales Emergency Services Minister Stephanie Cooke said on ABC on Wednesday morning. “It’s not over by any means.”

The Bureau of Meteorology told people in Sydney to prepare for months of rain to fall in a few hours. Officials said the Warragamba Dam, the city’s primary water source, started to overflow on Wednesday morning.

There could be up to eight inches of rain in Sydney and the surrounding areas in the next six hours. According to official data, the average amount of rain in Sydney in March is 138 mm, which is a lot.

During the floods, the main hospital in the northern town of Ballina was evacuated. This was done before the floodwaters were expected to reach their peak. 

It took some time for water levels to fall far enough for emergency services to get to Lismore, a town hit hard on Tuesday but a little further north.

NSW emergency crews rescued 300 people from floods after getting 2,200 calls for help overnight. When fast-rising water reached both ends of a bridge in the middle of a storm, military helicopters flew people and animals to safety.

People stuck on a bridge with Cassie Skillings told radio station 2GB a local man came to help them. He took them in his boat.

As soon as shipping containers started to fall off of bridges, “I called triple zero, and they said there was nothing they could do,” said the woman.