Rain has flooded communities since Thursday, but parts of the east coast were in crisis on Saturday when a large dam overflowed, adding to swollen rivers and causing flash floods.
Gladys Berejiklian, Prime Minister of New South Wales (NSW), announced on Monday that nearly 18,000 people had been evacuated from the flood-stricken regions of the state, and locals showed them on social media to show that thousands of animals also the move was.
Matt Lovenfosse posted Facebook updates of his family’s farm in Kinchela Creek, including the photo above.
“All the brown you can see is that Spiders are trying to hit the floodwaters,” he wrote in the caption.
Lovenfosse grew up on the farm and told CNN that he experienced similar floods in March 2001 and March 2013. On both occasions, the floodwaters pushed spiders toward the house, which is the highest point on the property.
“It is still raining here and the floodwaters are still rising, the water is getting closer to our house,” said Lovenfosse. “In the morning it should be inside and the spiders will be all over the house.”
However, Lovenfosse plans to stay in his two-story home.
“My family has lived here forever, I grew up here and we feel safe here,” he said.
Spiders are not the only animal hiding in the water, Lovenfosse added.
“The trees are full of snakes,” he said. “When you take the boat out over the campsite, they swim there and try to get something dry, the same with the spiders.”
It may sound like nightmares to some, but Lovenfosse is undisturbed.
“I grew up here on the farm, so I’ve always been in the vicinity of snakes, spiders and all the other animals, so they don’t bother me and usually we don’t cross paths too often, but when the flood comes, they are drying up, ‘he said.
“So many spiders from the floodwaters,” she wrote, along with a video of hundreds of arachnids crawling across what looked like garage doors.
“They will climb into your legs to get shelter as well,” reads the caption.
The wet weather will continue, and Berejiklian predicts that more people could be evacuated.
“The situation is evolving, the heavy rainfall is going to continue and we are now seeing weather warnings for the Illawarra and the south coast,” she said.
“I know of no time in the history of our state where we have had these extreme weather conditions so rapidly in a row in the pandemic,” she added. “So these are challenging times for New South Wales, but I think we have also shown that we are capable of being resilient.”