Power is still being restored across a swathe of inland Australia after destructive storms swept across the east coast and the nation's interior.
SES volunteers across NSW responded to 278 calls for emergency support on Sunday night and Monday morning.
About a third were from metropolitan Sydney and the rest from central parts of the state, which was hammered by heavy winds, lightning and rain throughout the night.
The small town of Carinda, southwest of Walgett in northern NSW, was hit particularly hard.
The local pub, pizza shop and general store sustained damage, while multiple houses were left without power as winds downed power poles.
Walgett Shire Council Mayor Jasen Ramien said the lightning and wind had ignited fires in the region before the downpour.
"From all reports, Carinda is in a fair mess," he said.
"There's been damage to multiple buildings right across the town ... homes damaged, shops."
The Nationals called for the NSW government to issue a natural disaster declaration for the area, which would make affected residents eligible for financial support.
Hundreds of people in areas spanning from the far north of the state to the central tablelands were still without power on Monday afternoon, mainly due to downed power lines.
Network provider Essential Energy was bringing in generators to areas where repairs could take a while.
"Crews made significant progress restoring power where it was safe and possible to do so," a spokeswoman said.
Helicopters are being used to assess network damage in the area.
Meanwhile, several cars were damaged in Sydney as a steel road plate near the Harbour Bridge was dislodged during the storm.
Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray apologised to drivers on Monday, saying they would be compensated.
“It was a nightmare,” he said.
Premier Chris Minns confirmed the government would foot the bill for any damage.
"Fair is fair, if it's a government failure then we need to step in and make sure that those families and those motorists aren't out of pocket, and I apologise for any inconvenience that they went through," he said.
The Bureau of Meteorology said 20 to 40mm of rain fell across large parts of NSW overnight, while Victoria also experienced heavy rain.
"We did see some isolated higher falls pushing up to 50 or 60mm, most notably through parts of northeastern Victoria," senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said.
The latest storms follow severe weather in October that left 20,000 people in Broken Hill, in far-western NSW, experiencing periodic outages for almost a week.
Back-up generators failed to carry the load of the town, forcing the state government to intervene and provide compensation for businesses and residents.
