The SES received over 60 calls for assistance and some roads, including the southbound lane of the Princes Highway, were closed.

Elsewhere on the highway traffic backed up as drivers slowed to 40km/h.

“There was 144mm of rain falling in a four-hour period, with 70mm in one hour,” said the SES’s Phil Campbell.

Most of the organisation’s calls for assistance came from people with leaking roofs and water coming onto their property.

The SES had 24 volunteers filling sandbags and putting them in place around homes, while the NSW Fire Brigade pumped water out from properties in Vincentia.

There were reports of water up to 60cm deep on one road in St Georges Basin, while 30cm of water closed the Princes Highway southbound at Wandandian.

Police said the flooding abated when a local person cleared a drain.

Vincentia resident Mark Corrigan said water on Elizabeth Drive was too deep for many drivers to attempt and a council backhoe dug upstream to see if the culvert was blocked by debris.

SES spokeswoman Jackie Gilmore urged people to be mindful of the problems blocked drains can cause in heavy rain.