A man has died after his four-wheel drive became one of many to get stuck in "quickly" rising floodwaters on the NSW Central Coast overnight.
Emergency services were called to a road in Matcham after midnight, following reports a 54-year-old man had gone missing.
After several hours of searching, police found a car in a low-lying creek with the man's body inside.
The area recorded several hours of heavy rain last night.
The Central Coast SES Unit had 180 call outs around the Gosford area, with about 150 millimetres of rain falling in just a few hours.
"Numerous roads went under all at the same time, cars floating away," SES controller Rolf Garda said.
Acting Inspector Rick Nicholson said locals reported the water rose about 1.6 metres during the night.
He said the circumstances of the incident were being investigated.
"If in doubt, stay out of the waters," he said.
"As this situation shows, it's not a forgiving situation if you get it wrong."
Brian Connell, who lives on the street where the fatal accident occurred, said the water "rose pretty quickly".
"It had been raining hard, but all of a sudden it came and it came," Mr Connell said.
"There was a lot of gravel in the road. It was chaos."
Tony Smith said the accident occurred at the front of his property and police knocked on his door at 5am.
He said the rain "built up and came through at a great surge".
"It is terrible for the young bloke who lost his life," he said
"This was unprecedented.
"It does flood here from time to time but not like that."
Flood rescues across NSW
The SES has completed 36 flood rescues over the past 24 hours.
That includes several rescues further north in the state's Northern Rivers region, with emergency services, SES volunteers and residents all being called upon to help.
Numulgi residents Jeri Hall and her husband had just finished their school bus run yesterday when they helped rescue three people who had been driving into floodwaters near their property.
But the most dramatic rescue came last night when an elderly man drove through the same creek crossing near Lismore.
The couple were notified by a neighbour that there was a man who had managed to climb to the top of his car, but was now surrounded by rising floodwaters.
"He was on his roof," Ms Hall said.
"We had to help him down and help him out of the water but he was quite distressed.
"In that moment he wouldn't leave his vehicle.
Luckily, her husband Aaron Hall is a retired trained rescue crewman for the local rescue helicopter.
His skills were put to immediate use.
"He actually dived down under the water and attached a strap to his vehicle while I got out [the] four-wheel-drive and dragged the vehicle out of the water," Ms Hall said.
She said the man continued to be very distressed and wouldn't leave his car.
"He couldn't tell me his last name, he couldn't tell me any of his family members, his mobile phone was completely saturated."
"The words that kept coming out of his mouth where 'I didn't think it was that deep, I'm so devastated.' You really felt for him," she said.
Reminder of dangers in floodwater
Ms Hall rang triple-0 and police, an ambulance and the SES were sent.
But because so many roads were cut off by floodwaters, it took some time before the help arrived.
And even then, it became a massive task to get the elderly man to rescuers.
"It's just that one of the SES volunteers used to work with my husband at the helicopter," Ms Hall said.
"So he rang my husband and said they were at Numulgi bridge which was a couple of kilometres away.
"So Aaron had to wade with the man through another section of floodwater to a vehicle to be able to take him up to the bridge and he was put into a dinghy and taken to rescue crews.
"We haven't heard how he is since then."
She said this isn't the first time the couple has had to rescue people who have driven through floodwaters, and would have done what anyone would have.
"But it's just a reminder that you should never drive through floodwater. It's not just their lives that they are risking," she said.
