NSW Premier Chris Minns stresses that this emergency is not over and the next 24 hours are crucial for Northern Rivers communities.
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00:00The rivers are full, the rain is continuing and expected to keep falling in the days ahead
00:09and wind conditions are very high and extreme, particularly on the coast, particularly in
00:16the Byron Shire right up to the Queensland border.
00:19So for those three reasons it's crucially important that the public not dismiss this
00:26weather event as something that's already passed.
00:28It really doesn't matter to us whether it's been downgraded from a tropical cyclone to
00:33a weather event or whether it's still a tropical cyclone.
00:37The effect on the northern rivers communities and lower down into the Coffs area is still
00:44the same for thousands and thousands of families.
00:47That's a really important point, this can't be just trivialised or put to one side.
00:51The emergency, the next 24 hours will be crucially important as we look to see what the weather
00:56event will do to these communities.
00:59I also want to make it clear that the SES have been working incredibly hard over the
01:03last 48 hours, as have police and other emergency services, but there's been 29 flood rescues
01:10across the northern rivers from different SES volunteer brigades.
01:16This I think speaks to the enormous bravery, the skill and dedication of many, many SES
01:22individuals and crews and teams.
01:24There's been 40 flood rescue crews that have been pre-positioned into the northern rivers
01:29and as you can see they were needed.
01:32There's also of course very sadly a man missing in the Dorrigo region and that's now a search
01:37mission in that upper Coffs Harbour region.
01:40We're obviously concerned about that but we need to make it clear that the message hasn't
01:45deviated, particularly as we move through to the flood part of this natural disaster
01:51and that is never drive through flood waters, never put yourself in danger.
01:56It's the most common way of people losing their lives during these flooding events.
02:01You risk your own life, a passenger in your car, a family member and also SES and police
02:07officials who will be sent in to try and rescue you in the event that you're in difficult
02:12situations and they'll always try but we don't want to put them in harm's way.