The beach has been closed to swimmers and surfers due to the wild weather. Bondi lifeguard Bruce Hopkins said the person had tried to jump into the water from the rocks at south Bondi. The Westpac Rescue Helicopter searches for a person missing in heavy surf south of Bondi Icebergs. Credit:Daisy Dumas Visibility in the water is zero due to wild surf and debris, Westpac Life Saver tweeted.

Sydney's eastern beaches have been slammed by dangerously strong waves and high tides. The huge swells are believed to have undermined the foundations of Coogee Surf Club, which is now at risk of collapse. Helicopters and drones have been used to assess the damage, while two NSW Fire and Rescue crews arrived on the scene just after 11am. The Westpac Rescue Helicopter searches for a person missing in heavy surf south of Bondi Icebergs. Credit:Westpac Life Saver @Lifesaverhel Hundreds of people have gathered along the sea wall to watch the dangerous waves, which have also washed away parts of a footpath and seating area outside the club.

The beach and ocean pool have been closed. But about half a dozen surfers ignored warnings from lifesavers and paddled out into the waves. Waves crash against Bondi Icebergs on Monday. Credit:Edwina Pickles Motorists die in floodwaters Three motorists have died in the floodwaters following the NSW storms. Emergency services were called to Leppington in Sydney's south-west on Sunday evening after reports a white ute entering a causeway had been washed away.

A four-wheel-drive vehicle in Paddys River upstream from the Cotter Reserve in the ACT. The driver died after trying to cross the raging torrent. Credit:Graham Tidy Police and State Emergency Service workers searched the flood-ravaged area into the night without success, before finding the man's body inside his vehicle early on Monday morning. Police divers retrieved the man's body about 11.30am on Monday and efforts were under way to winch his ute from Rileys Creek. Sunday's wild weather has taken a 50-metre-wide bite out of the Bronte coastline below the Waverley Cemetery. Credit:Daisy Dumas Police are searching for another person reportedly swept away.

A second body, of a 65-year-old man, has been recovered after his car was swept away by floods in the NSW Southern Highlands. The floods at Camden in Sydney's south-west. Credit:Curtis Aviation, www.curtisaviation.com.au The body was found in the vehicle in Mittagong Creek near Bowral about 9.30am on Monday after he was reported missing on Sunday. And a 37-year-old Canberra man has died after his car was caught in floodwaters near the Cotter Dam. Coogee's surf lifesaving clubhouse suffered extensive damage. Credit:Peter Rae

Police found the body of the man from Kambah about 4.30pm on Sunday but could only retrieve it on Monday morning. Police saw the man's vehicle after they were called out to a separate incident involving two men who had tried to, but realised they couldn't, cross the swollen river. Tony Cagorski's house teeters on the edge on Collaroy Beach. Credit:Peter Rae While emergency workers were trying to work out how to rescue the man, his four-wheel-drive was swept away by the floodwaters and flipped over. His body was spotted shortly later on an island in the middle of the river.

A sinkhole has opened on the lawn in front of Brian Vegh's Collaroy unit. Credit:Brian Vegh Warning not to drive through floods Emergency service personnel are frustrated at the number of flood rescues conducted over the weekend that tied up valuable resources because warnings about entering flood affected areas were ignored. NSW Police said they were at a loss as to what more could be done to get the message across about the dangers of entering floodwaters. Collaroy, the morning after the big storm. Credit:Peter Rae

Acting Assistant Commissioner Kyle Stewart said that, despite the constant warnings about the dangers of entering flood areas, two men have died in NSW. "It is a tragedy these two lives have been lost. We simply do not know how either of these two men came to be in the floodwaters. But what we know is that their deaths show just how dangerous flood waters are," he said. Image taken on Sunday morning shows widespread erosion at Narrabeen. Credit:UNSW Water Research Laboratory "'What do we have to say to get the message across? "Emergency service personnel this morning have had the devastating task of retrieving the bodies of the men.

"Floodwaters are deadly; we can't put it any other way," he said. "Please, have the conversation with your husband, wife, partner, sons and daughters, about the dangers of entering flood affected areas. It's just not worth the risk," he said. In Canberra, ACT Policing Sergeant Harry Hains told reporters, "The floodwaters yesterday ... were extremely strong, savage, with a lot of debris, large logs coming down the river. "The force was enough to flip a two-tonne ute. "These types of weather conditions, extreme weather conditions we've experienced do lead adventure-seeking-type people to seek mud with their four-wheel-drives.

"There is no risk worth taking to cross a flooded river to go and seek some piece of dirt to drive your four-wheel-drive on." The NSW SES performed 287 rescues in flooded areas and crews were working on the more than 9700 calls for help they have recorded. "There have been many rescues where people have driven or walked into floods," SES spokesman Matt Reeves said. "Where it's fast moving water, people are underestimating the force of the water and even vehicles can be easily swept away. "There could also be degrading of the road surface and they [will] slip off the road."

Northern beaches chaos Homes on Sydney's northern beaches have been partially washed away in the violent storms that battered the NSW coastline over the weekend. Residents from seven beachside homes and a unit block in Collaroy were evacuated about 8pm on Sunday as eight-metre waves slammed the coast, leading to major erosion. As residents returned to their homes on Monday to assess the damage, they found up to 10-15 metres of waterfront land had been washed away. An inground swimming pool has been swept on to the beach while several million-dollar homes hang precariously on the edge of sand cliffs.

Collaroy Surf Club has been severely damaged by the pounding surf and the nearby Collaroy Beach Club has its second-storey balcony collapsing onto the beach. "If you are standing in the garden, you would see cracks coming in. It was just washed out to sea," a female resident said. Police warned residents who were evacuated from their homes on Sunday not to return until critical safety inspections have been undertaken. Many unseen risks may be present inside flood-affected properties, including live power, structural damage, free-flowing effluent and associated health risks, they said. Public information points have been set up to provide information and help. They are at:

▪ 7-Eleven Service Station - Pittwater Road, North Narrabeen. ▪ Lakeside Caravan Park, North Narrabeen (near the site management office). ▪ Berry Reserve car park, Pittwater Road, Narrabeen. ▪ Pittwater Road, Collaroy (between Ramsay and Stuart streets). They will be staffed on Monday until 9pm and on Tuesday from 6am to 6pm.

Power outages More than 226,000 homes and businesses were left without power during the storms. Ausgrid is working to restore power to about 8000 homes in Sydney's north and northern beaches Crews from Endeavour Energy will focus on Monday with repairs to about 5700 customers in Sydney's west, the Southern Highlands, the Illawarra and the South Coast. Transport hit

Roads, bridges and public transport have also been affected. Windsor Bridge and North Richmond Bridge will most likely be closedon Monday afternoon because of flooding. Yarramundi Bridge is closed. A string of roads are closed in Sydney. Some train lines in and around Sydney were also affected, Transport for NSW says. The light rail between Central and Lilyfield was closed on Monday morning due to branches falling on overhead wires.

A land slip at Guildford closed the T5 Cumberland Line between Blacktown and Campbelltown and the T2 South and Inner West Line from Granville to Cabramatta. Flooding closed the South Coast Line between Wollongong and Bomaderry and between Wollongong and Port Kembla. Sydney weather eases However, the complex east coast low that brought the torrential rain and strong winds has moved south and conditions in Sydney have eased. Authorities remain concerned about a number of swollen rivers, particularly the Nepean and the Hawkesbury close to Sydney.

Major flooding is expected around Menangle on Monday as the extensive downpour is channelled into the Nepean River. Dangerous waves will continue to pound the state's coast on Monday and abnormally high tides could set off further flooding and erosion at night, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has warned. "We're not completely out of the woods yet," bureau forecaster Rebecca Kamitakahara said. The damaging low-pressure system has brought heavy rain over Victoria's east coast, but is now easing after more than 150mm fell on some areas at the weekend. The rain only glanced most of the far east of the state, although some areas received more than 150mm over three days.

Flash flooding in the East Gippsland district remains a possibility, the bureau says, and a minor flood warning is in place for the Cann, Genoa, Bombala and Snowy rivers. Storm claims hit $38m Insurance companies are declaring the wild weather that lashed the east coast a "catastrophe event" after receiving $38 million in initial claims. So far, customers in NSW and Queensland have made 11,150 insurance claims over damage caused by the heavy rainfall, storms and flooding, a spokesman from the Insurance Council said on Monday. Websites knocked out

Severe weather in Sydney appears to have been to blame for Sunday evening's nationwide outage of websites and online services. From about 4pm, users had issues accessing services including Menulog, Dominos and Go Get, as well as many websites including those belonging to Fairfax Media. Several streaming services were also down, including Stan and Foxtel Play. Record rain With about 68.4mm in the past day, Sydney has had just over 226.2mm of rain since Friday. That's easily more than a typical June for the city, which is just under 132mm, and far more than for the previous two months.

Sydney had 162.2mm in April and May, with last month alone the fifth driest May on record with just 7.2mm at Observatory Hill, the Bureau of Meteorology says. Schools closed Twelve public schools in NSW are closed because of road closures and flooding caused by violent storms. The Department of Education said three schools in Sydney, three in northern NSW and six on the South Coast will not open on Monday, but all TAFE NSW Institutes are open. The schools are: Narrabeen Lakes Public School, Picton High School, Wallacia Public School, Quaama Public School, Tanja Public School, Bega Valley Public School, Towamba Public School, Jerangle Public School, Windellama Public School, The Rivers Secondary College Richmond River High Campus, Jiggi Public School, Corndale Public School.

Mixed fortunes for farmers Grain farmers across inland regions are cheering the rains. However, banana, sugarcane and oyster farmers in northern NSW are counting the cost after their crops were slammed by heavy storms.



Swathes of sugarcane crops are still underwater after floods ravaged the region over the weekend, while wild winds battered banana plantations at Coffs Harbour, NSW Farmers spokesman Michael Burt said.

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Weatherzone: Sydney radar







AAP, Ava Benny-Morrison, Peter Hannam, Nick Ralston, Daisy Dumas