Eugowra postman says town 'will rebuild' after flood destroys Central West community

John Gilson has lived and worked in the community for seven years and described the feeling of fear and terror during Monday's disaster.

"We prepared for a flood like we normally would and then this wave hit," he said.

"From then on, it was just chaos."

The water rose at such speeds that Eugowra was effectively split in two. Telstra lines were down so communicating with people became near impossible.

"It was just chaos trying to find people and get lists together of who was safe and who was missing," Mr Gilson added.

"As things settled down on Monday night, all the stories and the incredible escapes came to light. It was quite surreal."

With a population of around 800 people, the town is a classic case of a place where everybody knows everybody.

That is even more so for Mr Gilson, who spends his days going from home to home delivering peoples' mail.

While that kind of tight-knit group can often be a positive in helping people get back on their feet, it does come at a cost.

"It's hard because everyone is family over there and that's where a lot of the trauma came from," Mr Gilson said.

"Everything multiplies with the more people you have in your circle...and our community is one tight circle."

With that said, Mr Gilson believes it was the work of the community which helped save many a life that night.

"We all think that if it had happened three hours earlier, the death count would have been huge. The death count should have been huge as it was, but it was only the local community looking after each other when it hit that saved so many lives," he added.

"The death count could have been in its hundreds easily, it's a miracle it wasn't."

After a few days helping clean up what is left of the town, Mr Gilson managed to take up shelter with family in Dubbo for a couple of nights, before heading back to Eugowra to resume piecing things back together.

"At the moment, people are still just pitching in, cleaning up and helping. I think for most people, (moving forward) is in the back of their head and they haven't really thought about what's next. We're still in the now," he said.

"Once things get cleaned up, then we can sit back and think about how we can start again. The priority at the moment is getting it cleaned up and finding things and finding people."

But while the future may not be on many people's minds, Mr Gilson was unwavering in his assertion that this was not the end for the town of Eugowra.

"We will rebuild as a community. It might take us a while and it will be a struggle and we'll lose some people from the town, but we'll be back," he said.

"I've lived and worked all around Australia. From the outside, I would have looked at what happened in Eugowra and thought there's no way we could recover from what's happened. That was before I knew Eugowra and knew what the town was like. We will recover, it will just be a slow process."

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