While the State Emergency Service says Port Macquarie and Kempsey escaped "major flooding", residents were evacuated and homes were inundated.

Removing fallen trees and fixing roofs made up the majority of the 215 calls to Port Macquarie SES  crews since Friday afternoon.

Deputy operations controller Alison Richards said the flood situation had eased but the priority for crews was to deliver food supplies to isolated properties on the town’s North Shore.

“It (the water) has pretty much gone down but the main problem is there’s still a lot of debris in the river and the ferries aren’t running yet,” Ms Richards said. “Until then we’re going to have people isolated on the North Shore because they can’t go through Crescent Head and Kempsey yet.”

Ms Richards said the Hastings River reached a peak of 1.72 metres at Settlement Point on Saturday night, just below a predicted river height of 1.9 metres.

While most residents heeded SES warnings to stay out of flood water, she said some people chose to ignore officials and volunteer crews were sent to help people stuck in flood waters around Wauchope while other residents were spotted riding jet skis and boats on the debris littered Hastings River.

Kempsey appeared to escape major flooding with water peaking lower than expected at the town's northern levee.

Media officer Greg Gill said water levels had  reached lower levels than expected as it was predicted 400mm of water would leak over the levy and inundate the CBD.

“It peaked lower and we had minimal water come over the northern levee,” Mr Gill said. “It impacted on some businesses right near the levy and some homes still have an evacuation order on them but the rest of the CBD has been given the all clear and can open again, and that has happened today.”

Mr Gill said a man was rescued by volunteers on South West Rocks Rd on Saturday night after he stalled is car in flood waters about midnight.

The man swept about 250m away from his car and managed to climb onto a tree and stay there for 10 hours. SES crews were alerted and the man was rescued about 10am yesterday.

Mr Gill said the job for SES crews today was to resupply isolated properties in the Upper Macleay area.

The number of evacuees at the evacuation centres at Kempsey High School and Melville High School on either side of the Macleay River was not known.

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