"Absolute bedlam" was the situation at Max Wake's dairy farm late on Wednesday afternoon, after a long night and even longer day moving hundreds of cattle to higher ground as the Hunter River threatened to break its banks.
Mr Wake has been in the business for 47 years, he survived the horror 2007 Singleton floods, relentless drought and the deluge in March - but it never gets easier.
"It's been bedlam today [Wednesday], we got up last night when they were predicting 13.1 metres, which wasn't all that bad, but when we got up this morning it was 13.8 and we have been shifting cattle all day," he said.
"There's water all over the flats at Whittingham, we've been shifting fertiliser up onto higher ground and hopefully we won't have to move the milkers.
"It's a bit trying, we had a lot of feed we had planted and it's all under water again."
By lunchtime Mr Wake had already moved 140 head of cattle to higher ground at the saleyards or to neighbouring properties, but with 270 milkers still in the shed - the situation was dire.
"It's not going to be a good afternoon or night," he said.
"With a dairy farm we have to try to milk the cows, provided the water doesn't get too high you can do that, but if it gets to 14 metres we will be in trouble.
"In 2007 it was 14.1m, when it got that high it was almost in our house, it was in the dairy."
Over at the Hunter Regional Livestock Exchange, hundreds of head of cattle poured in by the hour as farmers tried desperately to salvage stock.
Regional manager Brock Syphers said they'd already cancelled Wednesday's sale and it's likely Saturday's won't go ahead either.
"At the moment people are madly bringing in horses, cattle and sheep to keep them high, dry, fed and out of harm's way," he said.
"We're quite lucky to have 500-odd pens there so we can house quite a few, Singleton has been very unfortunate with a few flood warnings but this is the first where livestock have started to turn up so that's an indication of the severity."
By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the New England Highway was shut in both directions at Singleton as water inundated the road.
Businesses made the mad scramble for sandbags in Singleton as rising flood waters forced many to close their doors on Wednesday.
It's a real financial concern for some, as Singleton Business Chamber president Sue Gilroy called for the state and federal governments to step in with more support.
"There are plenty of homeowners and businesses in Singleton and places like Bulga and Broke that do lose revenue, even if it's just closing for half a day, so if it's ongoing I would certainly hope a state of emergency may be declared so they can get that support.
"People are concerned, I don't think any of us have seen an evacuation warning for the town - I went to get sandbags and it felt like the world had gone crazy.
"People didn't know what to do - I know people have actually left town even though it was only a warning, so I don't think we are out of the woods yet."
Singleton is not currently among the 23 local government areas announced by the federal and NSW governments eligible for disaster assistance.
Ausgrid warned it was prepared to shut off the town's power supply at short notice if conditions continued to worsen, with concerns live electrical assets could pose a risk to the community.
St Catherine's Catholic College agriculture teacher Joanna Towers was faced with the task of moving 25 head of cattle, sheep and an alpaca from the school farm - calling around desperately for cattle trucks to help.
"We have pigs left but I can't move them, they're up as high as they can go and hopefully they'll be alright," she said.
"It is scary, we've moved them to the sale yards but all the trucks are really busy driving around carting animals up to higher ground, we were lucky to have people give us a hand.
"We had so many offers of help to move and help at the farm, it is nice when people get together even though they're flat out themselves - they came to give us a hand so you don't feel alone."
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