Retaining wall's frightening failure as Illawarra faces another deluge

Rain will continue all week with at least 10 millimetres each day and a drenching of up to 60mm forecast for this coming weekend.

All up 150mm could be recorded by Sunday, May 12.

Farmborough Heights man Andrew Dixon is already counting the cost of heavy rainfalls from May 4-6, after 107.2mm was recorded in Kiama and 57.6mm in Albion Park up to 1pm on Monday.

Data from Bellambi's weather station shows just 1mm of rain fell during this time, however nearby stations in Russell Vale and Fernhill got around 90mm.

The Mercury understands the Bellambi station is malfunctioning and has contacted the Bureau of Meteorology for comment.

Mr Dixon was fast asleep in his Farmborough Heights home on Sunday, May 5, after working night shift when he heard a big thud outside.

Half asleep he stumbled out onto his verandah to investigate, but couldn't see anything in the darkness so he went back to bed.

It wasn't until 9am when he discovered retaining walls on his sloped block on Waples Road had collapsed, large amounts of earth had been swept away from the under the front of his home, and his carport was now hanging precariously towards the footpath.

"As soon as I saw the carport I rang the SES and they were here within half-an-hour," he said.

"The council guy turned up about an hour later, I thought it [the response] was pretty good."

Mr Dixon praised SES, Fire and Rescue NSW crews and council workers who came to his property to assess the damage, test electrical cables left exposed in the carport, and cordon off the footpath near his home.

The carport will now need to be demolished and he said so far it doesn't look like his insurance company will cover it.

"I rang the insurance company and they said retaining walls aren't covered, but I said it's storm damaged and the carport is part of the house," he said.

"The insurance company will send a builder out to see if I can make a claim."

The Waples Road incident was among 59 calls for help to the Illawarra's four SES units since the heavy rain began on Saturday morning.

Trees down, storm damage, flooding, leaking roofs and requests for sandbags have keep SES volunteers ever since.

At 12.34pm on Sunday, May 5, the SES were called to a landslip off Lawrence Hargrave Drive at Stanwell Park.

At Mount Ousley Public School, sandbags were put down ahead of the weekend's heavy rain to help stop further damage after its canteen was destroyed in the April 6 storms and flooding.

The wet weather also caused widespread blackouts for around 60,000 customers in the northern Illawarra on Sunday night and early Monday morning.