Jacqui Duncan was concerned when the rain started thumping down last Wednesday, but it was the sound of moving wheelie bins that alarmed her. She had been here before.

“I know that sound is because water is moving at a fast enough pace to dislodge them,” the renter from Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Redfern said. “The bins started floating, and I immediately started trying to barricade my door, but there’s just nothing you can do when the water moves in so quickly.”

Because stormwater had already gushed into her home in 2024, Duncan shot into action. She waded through knee-high black stormwater to take video evidence of her and neighbours’ claims: that road operator company, Transurban, was pumping water down their street from the Eastern Distributor.

“You don’t see water running down t

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