No way out!

St Marys Pass is impassable
(ABC news image)

Bridge into St Helens under water
(ABC news image)

Easterly winds of up to 50 kph lash the coast and around 300mm of rain falls on and around St Helens. Unable to make mobile phone contact, mum, who is visiting again, rang from the emergency shelter at the Binalong Bay fire station to say that her (actually my) tent blew away in the wind. The causeway into town is flooded and she will miss her Thursday flight out of Launceston.

"The deluge over the past two days has trapped thousands of people in Bicheno, Derby and St Marys...Flash flooding has isolated towns along the Tasman Highway from Bicheno to Derby...Certainly the Tasman Highway's the major concern because that's the main arterial road through from the north-east to the east coast..."  (source: ABC news)