'I can't see an end in sight': Flooded Warren not out of the water yet, says mayor

"I live 13 kilometres out of town and a fair way from the river and we've got water over the road in a number of places, and there's water in our paddocks. There are people further than us out and, with that continual flow of water, it's spread out a very long way," said Warren Shire Council mayor, Milton Quigley.

"We're still getting some pretty heavy flows down the river so we envisage the river levels staying up there for at least four or five or six days before we see any reprieve. I can't see an end in sight immediately, that's for sure."

Mayor Quigley said it's property owners around the shire who have been most impacted by the flooding, with a recently-repaired levee protecting the town itself from the floodwaters.

"Our levee banks have been in place since '96 and we did some repair work in November of last year - it was a bit of a push comes to shove thing, we looked at the weather and thought the levee needed some rehabilitation," he said.

"But it's been wet for a long time and that engenders a degree of fatigue for people, especially for landholders."

"The biggest impact is on farmers, there's a fair number of canola crops which have been impacted in a pretty substantial way. We're in cotton planting season as we speak and it's been so wet that I'm not sure any cotton has gone into the ground yet.'

On Wednesday around 29 millimetres of rain fell in Dubbo, topping up the already-high Macquarie river. Some locals around Warren reportedly measured over 60 millimetres of rain.

As of 6pm on Thursday night, the Macquarie River at Warren Town was measuring around 9.43 metres and steady - well above the major flood level of 9 metres.

The SES say river heights are expected to remain above the major flood level for at least the next few days.

"Warren is still at the major flood level and will remain at that level now - with this water moving through the catchment - at least until the middle of next week," said SES spokesperson, David Rankine.

Cr Quigley said the high river levels meant Warren Shire Council had to close the town's stormwater gates to prevent river water from flowing into the town. When the river level is above 8.5 metres, water is high enough to flow from the river back into the town through the stormwater system.

"Then the issue becomes overhead rain - we have to pump water out of the levee back into the river. At the moment there are a lot of pumps in place that we have had to utilise on Wednesday, and that's all gone well," said Cr Quigley.

"We really don't need any more overhead rainfall events at the moment and we don't need any more east of us, we get about 30 percent of our water from below Burrendong."

Currently every unsealed road in Warren as well as Ellengerah Road and Wambianna Road are still closed. The SES warns other roads in the area - including Gilgandra, Udora, Bundemar, Carinda and Quambone Roads - may also be impacted by flooding.

On Thursday, the SES reported they had responded to "20 to 30" rescues in the Central West, most of them involving motorists around Warren.

"We're asking people to make some really safe decisions on the road, we've had way too many rescues and we're really disappointed with how some people in the community have responded," said Mr Rankine.

Mayor Quigley urged the Warren community and anyone from surrounding areas passing through to take care on the roads and pay attention to road closures.

"The volunteers have been responding on an as-needs basis but the need's been far too often in my view. Motorists need to be aware that neither of the back roads to Dubbo are open and they really are closed," he said.

"Don't drive past a road closed sign. It's beggars belief to me that people will actually do that but it's happened, and it's happened too often."

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