Lethal NSW floods flow south as anger mounts over residents who ignored evacuations

He had already seen floodwaters flow through sections of his house two nights earlier. Suddenly, he now faced the prospect of it happening again.

"We watched masses of landslide drift down the Wilsons River behind the house," said Mr Roberts.

"A live horse floated straight past us but there was nothing we could do. In seconds it had been and gone. The water flow was that rapid."

While the State Emergency Service (SES) confirmed on Saturday "the worst" was now over, residents were still being evacuated from communities as the deadly floodwaters from ex-Cyclone Debbie, which inundated the NSW North Coast last week, moved south.

The SES confirmed it had surpassed 400 flood rescues and 2220 requests for assistance. 

NSW SES Commissioner Mark Smethurst described the previous 24 hours as "hectic", singling out Lismore as the worst hit.

"Lismore is still quite inundated. Most of the flood rescues were of people trapped in their own buildings who did not heed the warnings when they were told to evacuate," he said.

"It's been a real problem up here and certainly a concern of all the emergency services." 

Up to 30,000 residents have been instructed to leave their properties in recent days. However, Mr Roberts was among the many who took a gamble. 

"They [authorities] tell everyone in the towns what's going on but further downstream, you're sort of in the dark until that knock on the door from police," he said. "We got told tThis is a 100-year flood, you need to go'. But we had nowhere to go. So we stayed it out."

As the SES prepares itself for "recovery mode" in Lismore, some of the town's residents received a first glimpse of the destruction caused to their homes, with flood levels having subsided by almost 1½ metres in some areas. The floods had peaked on Friday at 11.6 metres, marking the highest floodwaters in the region since 1974. 

Binti Jones accompanied her son Mathew, 8, and daughter Maleah, 5, in kayaks to their family house in Bright Street which they had evacuated two nights earlier.

"It's a bit of a journey into the unknown," she said as she paddled past neighbours. "This will be the first time inside so fingers crossed."

Further upstream, in the same street, Laurie and Tracey Batshaw were wading through the ground floor of their house, still coming to terms with what had unfolded.

"I can't get over how quickly it [the water] came up," Mr Batshaw told Fairfax Media.

"We've lost lounges, furniture and other stuff," said his wife while surveying the damage. "I collect dolls," she added. "They are going to require some washing and a bit of care."

On Saturday it was confirmed there had been three deaths in floodwaters across the two states, with two in NSW and one in Queensland.

Police said a woman's body had been located on a flooded property about 20 kilometres south of Murwillumbah, after disappearing in overnight floodwaters from the rural property.

A second woman's body was discovered in a car on Friday afternoon, after she was swept away while driving over a causeway in the Hunter Valley on Thursday night.

The body of a 77-year-old man reported missing was found on Saturday afternoon just south of Brisbane, after he attempted to walk through floodwaters on Friday. 

Police are investigating the discovery of a body of a 45-year-old man in a caravan park in South Murwillumbah on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear whether the cause of death was flood-related.  

Premier Gladys Berejiklian thanked emergency services for their efforts, adding it was "a cause of concern that too many people did not follow instructions" to evacuate.

"Our systems are better than they've ever been, in terms of notifying more people," she said.

"The extent of the seriousness of the flood was not anticipated because the forecast underestimated how much rain would be received in a very short amount of time ... which is why so many people have been impacted."

smh.com.au with Sarah Muller