THERE'S an end in sight for the cut off community of Wee Waa, which has been isolated for almost a week due to flooding.
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After becoming its own island on Friday, water has started to slowly recede, and access in and out of the town could be returned this weekend.
State Emergency Service (SES) Superintendent Mitch Parker told the Leader with floodwaters getting lower and lower, he expects road access to be restored by Sunday.
"We're just going to review it as it goes, we're still seeing major levels but it's dropping very slowly," he said.
"So about Sunday we may see it pass, and we might be able to start seeing some specialised, high clearance vehicle access."
While the town itself has been protected by a substantial levee, the isolation has meant the community has been cut off from supplies.
That's where boats and helicopters have come in, with a huge joint effort between the SES, Rural Fire Service and Fire & Rescue NSW keeping the community safe.
Member for Barwon Roy Butler said six to seven helicopters have been delivering food to the town each day, and boats are also helping keep stocks up.
"We've got 70 workers who are being ferried across water out at cotton seed distributers by the SES every day to get to work," he said.
"This is not new for Wee Waa, they've been through this before. Wee Waa never expected the levee to be breached, but if it had breached then Narrabri would have been in a huge amount of trouble."
Superintendent Parker said a recovery phase for Wee Waa, which is handled by Resilience NSW and council, will begin from early next week.
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With a positive weather outlook over the next few days, crews remain optimistic. The flood peak has already passed in Narrabri and with no inundation of homes, recovery efforts have begun.
"The SES have been doing impact damage assessments and are starting to move into the recovery phase now in Narrabri," he said.
"The rain predicted on Wednesday and Thursday went around us and hit Coonabarabran, Tambar Springs area.
"We've got a good outlook for the next few days, the weather is quite benign, but it won't take long for anything else to top up if we do get a lot of rain again."
Meanwhile, upstream at the Macintyre River, residents in Boggabilla and Toomelah have been told to prepare to evacuate.
The SES reported significant river level rises along the Macintyre River upstream of the communities.
It's expected to reach the major flood level of 12 metres early Friday morning and is likely to peak near 12.8 metres on Friday evening.
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