A woman swept away by floodwaters in Eugowra had been rescued from her home by emergency workers shortly before she disappeared.
It is believed she drowned as she tried to reach higher ground.
Diane Smith thanked Eugowra North Rural Fire Service brigade member Pat Welsh for helping her out of her inundated home on Monday morning.
"We got her out of the house that morning with water chest deep, [and] loaded her into the truck," Mr Welsh said.
"She actually turned to me as I loaded her into the truck and said, 'Thank you Patrick. I owe you a beer.'
"We dropped her off at the bridge, which was the safe place at the time as the SES were ushering people down to the showground to the evacuation centre."
With rising floodwaters threatening those on the bridge, it appears Ms Smith had tried to drive the few hundred metres to the showground.
The car she was driving was swept off the road and she was last seen clinging to a tree.
A body believed to be that of Ms Smith was found in Eugowra on Wednesday.
Mr Welsh described a chaotic scene in Eugowra on Monday, with people yelling for help from their homes and with emergency vehicles getting bogged and trapped in the water as rescuers scrambled to collect people clinging to rooftops and trees.
"We heard a man yelling out from the retirement village across the road so we attempted to swim across to save him," he told 7.30.
"He was on a chair and the water was lapping on his chest and he said, 'Don't let me die. Don't let me die.'"
Mr Welsh could not reach him but the man was saved by a rescue helicopter crew.
He estimates his truck picked up about 60 people and ferried them to dry land.
"It was just like a tidal wave here," said Mr Welsh, who was this week helping with the epic clean-up of the wrecked town where up to two metres of water swallowed most of the town's homes and businesses.
'At one point I thought, this is it'
Just a few hundred metres out of town, Hugh and Lyn Ellis had earlier moved their cars to higher ground as flooding appeared likely, but the speed of the rising waters in Mandagery Creek trapped them in their house.
"We thought we were right, we thought we were ready, we thought we were prepared. And then this wave just came, roared," Ms Ellis said.
They had just finished a seven-month renovation of their home which included installing a pull-down ladder leading to their roof cavity. Mr Ellis pulled the ladder down and the couple scrambled up as the water rose in the house.
In the pitch-dark attic, Mr Ellis tried to smash his way through the tin roof with a lump of wood.
"And when we were in the ceiling and Hugh's bashing at the ceiling, trying to get us out, you could hear the house and the windows smashing … I thought the whole thing was going to go," Ms Ellis said.
"The whole building was shuddering and shaking.
"We could see big logs coming up against it. We could feel it in the ceiling."
"At one point, I thought, 'This is it. There's no way out of here.'
"And at the 11th hour, Hugh finally broke through with the wood and we got up on the roof and the helicopters were there."
The Sun was now shining, and the tin roof was searingly hot.
They sheltered in the shade of an air-conditioning unit until a helicopter crew spotted them and winched down a rescuer.
Like most of Eugowra's buildings, the couple's home was severely damaged.
The force of the water pushed in the home's windows, pushed up the floor, and carried away a stone benchtop in the kitchen as well as most of the couple's furniture.
Ms Ellis's mother's and grandmother's jewellery was washed away, and her clothes were destroyed.
"That's the walk-in wardrobe that Lyn had waited for all her life," Mr Ellis said, gesturing at the wreckage in their bedroom.
The house was a former function centre the couple had converted into their home. Just three days before the disaster, they had held a party to celebrate the completion of the building works.
"At least we're alive," Ms Ellis said.
The couple had farmed in the district for 40 years before retiring a year ago and moving closer to town. Mr Ellis said it had not been possible to insure the home against flooding.
The couple's dog had been washed away, but they had just found out that he had been found, bedraggled and frightened, but alive.
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