One third of flood rescues in the Hunter over the past week were motorists who had driven into rising water and become stuck.
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And, the SES even had calls for help after people decided to go swimming in floodwaters and found themselves in trouble.
NSW SES Deputy Incident Controller Northern Zone Inspector Jamal Box, based at Metford, said calls for these kind of incidents were not surprising.
He noted that the SES had been spreading strong messages about the dangers of flooding in the lead up to the flood last week, in the hope that people would heed the warnings.
He said the SES mantra was "Stay safe! Don't enter flood water, don't drive through flood water, If its flooded forget it!" but it seemed some people had still missed it.
"We've had a lot of people driving through flood water - even with all the messaging there were people who were still putting their lives at risk," Inspector Box said.
"We're not there to judge them, we are there to help them when it does happen and we hope that the educational messaging that we have put around will be enough for them to identify the risks in their area and evacuate early if they need to evacuate so they are not becoming a victim.
"Basically when we are called to something like this we paddle out and assist them. The power vessels were used when the flow of water was greater.
"We have a very strong contingent of flood rescue technicians in the Hunter and none of our flood rescue technicians are paid employees, they are all volunteers."
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Belinda-Jane Davis
Passionate about community news
Passionate about community news
