No new flood rescue boats in Lismore

New flood rescue boats bought in the wake of the devastating Lismore floods have not arrived in the NSW town, ahead of a likely third consecutive La Nina summer.

Asked if the Northern Rivers was ready for another potentially catastrophic flood, the NSW State Emergency Service commissioner said extra rescue boats had been purchased, but were not yet in Lismore.

“We have the boats available. There aren’t any extra up there (in Lismore) but we’re continuing to roll out our replacement program for fleet and vessels,” Carlene York told a budget estimates hearing on Friday.

“It’s important to note that the weather conditions are quite different than what we had in the February-March floods.”

During those floods, a low pressure system had blanketed much of eastern NSW and Queensland, and much of the Sunshine State was also inundated, she said.

The extreme weather in the Northern Rivers and Hawkesbury-Nepean regions killed 13 people, and destroyed more than a thousand homes.

“We were particularly stretched during the February-March floods that we had to maintain resources in a lot of places across NSW.”

New systems, created after the February-March floods, were implemented during flooding in July.

These included getting three to five days of early briefings from the Bureau of Meteorology, and liaising with other emergency agencies.

“We have resources available to go, we’re looking at the resources available across the state,” Ms York said.

“We can relocate fleets and vessels much easier than we could in the February-March floods.”

Ms York said the SES had also invested in six Unimog emergency vehicles – large semi-amphibious trucks that can drive into water up to 1.2m deep.

One Unimog is based at Lismore and was used during flooding in July.

Flood Recovery Minister Steph Cooke stressed the government had made a record investment of $4.2 billion in emergency services in the 2022-23 budget.

This included a spend of $132.7 million for the NSW SES, including $40 million for capital expenditure.

The state’s two fire services received a combined $1.9 billion.

Australia will probably experience a third consecutive La Nina year in 2022, based on weather bureau predictions released in August.

La Nina leads to cooler but wetter weather, with above-average rainfall in Australia’s east and north, and has been the driver of Australia’s recent bout of devastating floods.