The weather bureau sounded an urgent flood warning for a rural village at 9:07 a.m., indicating that river levels would rise significantly by the afternoon.

Within just 17 minutes, the central western NSW village of Eugowra was overwhelmed by a devastating flash flood. Survivors described the onslaught as a “wall of water” or an “inland tsunami.”

Tragically, the flood claimed the lives of Diane Smith, 60, and Ljubisa “Les” Vugec, 85, on November 14, 2022. The disaster prompted 124 helicopter rescues as residents sought refuge by clinging to trees or finding safety on rooftops.

Nearly every home in the village, which houses a population of 800, sustained damage or was destroyed when Mandagery Creek surged to a peak of 11.02 meters.

An inquest is currently underway to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Smith and Vugec, scrutinizing the series of events, the weather warnings issued, and the scale of the emergency response.

Matthew Collopy, a senior manager from the Bureau of Meteorology, today defended the agency’s flood warning that morning as “clear and timely”.

The warning issued just before the water rose said creek levels “may reach” 10.5m, leaving room for the possibility of further rises, Collopy said.

The experienced meteorologist, who manages the national warning system from Brisbane, said the flood advice was based on all available data from rain and river gauges, satellites and weather radars.

The bureau did not know until later that two gauges upstream at Toogong and Smithfield had been damaged and were not transmitting data.

There were also no instruments at the creek in the village, he said.

“It should be pointed out that we did not have any data information coming from Eugowra town,” Collopy told the inquest at Orange courthouse today.

There were up to six meteorologists working on the bureau’s flood desk the night before the disaster, at a time when there were 43 warnings across Australia and 14 in NSW, the inquest was told.

The Mandagery Creek has since been prioritised for a telemetric gauge under a 10-year federal government program.

Collopy said the telemetric gauge could improve flood warnings, but it was awaiting various state and federal planning approvals.

When Deputy State Coroner David O’Neil questioned the “tardiness” of installing the gauge, Collopy said there were 10,000 flood warning instruments across Australia and only a third were overseen by the bureau.

He said the federal program to upgrade warning systems was a “once in a generation” opportunity.

“Without that funding and efforts, it’s been very difficult for the bureau and other agencies to upgrade and maintain this very large network,” Collopy told the coroner.

Water NSW maintained the upstream gauges.

Senior technician Andrew Cutler told the inquest it was an ongoing effort to make equipment as robust as possible to withstand extreme weather.

“If we had the budget, we would have started yesterday,” Cutler said.