Brown water under a shed with a white ute on one side

Flooding at Matthew South’s Darwin River property.  (Supplied: Matthew South)

About 20 properties in Darwin’s rural area have reportedly been severely damaged by flooding, with some residents reporting they have “lost everything”, and one woman with four children having to be rescued from the roof of their home.

Resident Jake Elsegood said floodwater in the Darwin River area, about 60 kilometres south of Darwin, had risen so quickly on Monday morning, there was no time to prepare.

“It was dramatic how fast it all came,” he said.

“I tried to move some cars out of the way, put them in the driveway and stuff. Before I knew it, they were floating in the yard.”

Mr Elsegood, his wife, who is seven months pregnant, and their two-year-old child, became trapped on the property where they rent a donga.

“We called emergency services, we waited for four-and-a-half hours for a call back, and our neighbour actually swum in and swum us out,” he said.

Two photos side by side show brown water on the left high up on a shed, and on the right submerging an orange ride on mower

Jake Elsegood says residents were shocked at how fast the floodwaters rose.  (Supplied: Matthew South)

“There was all sorts of stuff — spiders, centipedes, everything — trying to get to high ground, so you’re getting bitten from everything while you’re trying to cross the water.”

He said the whole ordeal was “crazy”.

“Everyone’s pretty mixed up and distraught,” he said.

“Like, my daughter hasn’t really been eating or anything. My wife’s a mess. It’s just crazy to see her whole life get swept away in an instant.

“We just got absolutely no warning, no notice.”

SecureNT emergency contact numbers:

Emergency — police, ambulance and fire: 000
Police assistance: 131 444
Power and Water: 1800 245 090 or click here for the live outage tracker
Storm assistance: 132 500

Matthew South, who owns the Darwin River property where Mr Elsegood lives with his family, wasn’t home at the time, and said he was currently cut off from his property because the driveway was flooded.

“All the waters obviously come out of Darwin River and Darwin River has crocodiles in it,” he said.

“So once there’s this much water laying around, you don’t know where the crocodiles will be.”

Mr South said he had managed to get in to have an initial look at the damage to his house on Tuesday.

“It’s pretty bad … There was still knee-deep water through the entire house,” he said.

“Fridges were floating in the lounge room.”

A kitchen is filled with water and a fridge floats on its side

Flooding has sent fridges floating in Matthew South’s house.  (Supplied: Matthew South)

Judging from the water line inside his home, Mr South estimated the water had reached more than half a metre.

But he said some of his neighbours had suffered worse damage, including one woman and her four children who had to be saved from the roof of their home.

“That would have been pretty scary for them,” he said.

“I’ve seen some aerial footage from a helicopter, and [one] house looked quite bad … it looked like the water was pushing up to the eaves of the house.”

Mr Elsegood said all that was left of his belongings was debris.

“We don’t have any insurance or any way to claim anything, so we’ve, yeah, we’ve lost absolutely everything,”

he said.

“We’ve got a fence sort of surrounding our property and there was debris floating from upstream, like all sorts of stuff — you name it, couches, bloody cars, tyres, everything just coming through and just smashing stuff, just making way.”

Mr Elsewood said the flood had happened on his daughter’s birthday.

“She’s got all the new birthday presents — they’re all gone,” he said.

“Everything’s gone. It’s very sad for her.”

Incident Controller Superintendent Emma Carter confirmed that emergency services had received calls for help from Darwin River residents, and said the local community had helped to assist many people who had become trapped by floodwaters.

Pump station back up and running

Meanwhile, residents in Greater Darwin residents have been asked to minimise their water use and boil water following flash flooding that overwhelmed pumping equipment at Darwin River Dam.

Infrastructure Minister Bill Yan took to social media last night to say operations at the pump station for Darwin River Dam had started again.

“I’m on site at the Darwin River Dam and the backup generator is fired up and the pump is operating,” Mr Yan said.

“There’s more work to do but we’re making good progress.

“Water restrictions still apply and keep boiling your water.”

In a statement on Wednesday morning, Power and Water Corporation (PWC) said efforts to “restore water supply are tracking well”.

“Our crews have worked tirelessly overnight to achieve adequate water supply levels for the Greater Darwin network,” the statement read.

Two men in high-vis yellow uniform working in an industrial indoor space. One is leaning over metal shelving, red cords around

PWC crews worked throughout the night to start repairs on the pump station at Darwin River Dam. (Supplied: NT Government)

“This morning steady levels of supply from Darwin River Dam are being achieved following repairs to a major pump.

“We still have significant work to do over coming days to achieve permanent repairs.”

The PWC spokesperson added that the organisation was still urging residents to continue using water “for essential purposes only”.