The memory is the smell of mud covering nearly every inch of her North Wagga home - including the inside.

"I saw the pictures the other day [of the current floods] and all I could do was smell wet mud," she said. "It stinks, it's disgusting."

Exactly 10 years ago, torrential rainfall lashed NSW and filled the Murrumbidgee River, eventually causing it to rise to more than 10 metres above sea level.

The surging water tore through North Wagga, inundating hundreds of homes and causing millions of dollars worth of damage.

On the other side of the river, the water was inches away from breaching Wagga's flood levee and flowing through the city's recently-evacuated CBD.

Mrs Dawson spent her Saturday filled with a sense of unease, as she gathered supplies for what was meant to be a few days of being cut off from the rest of town.

The evacuation order came in on Sunday afternoon.

"My husband went one way, my kids who lived in North Wagga went one way and I went a different way," she said. "To this day I don't know what happened on Monday - it was a complete and utter blur."

Mrs Dawson and a friend were able to secure refuge at a Wagga motel.

The next week was punctuated with nervous anticipation and a firm realisation that nothing more could be done, as floodwaters undoubtedly seeped into her uninsured home a few kilometres away.

When she finally got the chance to assess the damage, she pulled open her mud-soaked front door only to be greeted by a wave of the brown sludge.

Almost $90,000 of damage had been done to Mrs Dawson's home.

Dan Grentell was living in Central Wagga at the time but owned two properties in North Wagga, where his family still lived.

He was one of the first people to venture back into the suburb after the all clear was given and remembers an eerie feeling as he walked through the deserted, soaked streets. "I walked down East Street and it was weird because it just looked like it had just been raining," he said.

"But there was stuff strewn over the yards and when we walked inside the houses that's when we saw all the mud and everything."

Mr Grentell's childhood home was nearly completely destroyed and he says almost everything had to be pulled out of the rental property he managed in the suburb.

"The fences were pushed over, there was mud through the house, the oven was destroyed, the kitchen was destroyed, the carpets were destroyed," he said.

"It was a bit emotional really ... the water went a lot higher than people thought it was going to."

Kerry Pascoe was the Wagga mayor at the time and spent the week sandbagging homes and businesses across the city.

He remembers fondly the way the community rallied before, during and after the flood.

"Everybody was willing to pitch in and give a hand," he said.

"It's really heartwarming, especially when you come out of it on the other end and you realise there are people you can really rely on.

"I've still got people I helped out during that flood who I'd say I have close relationships with now."

Mr Pascoe admits the week was an emotional time for many people in Wagga, including himself, but that volunteering and getting to work was a way to keep his mind off all the destruction.

Wagga became the leading national news story for the week as hundreds of emergency services personnel descended on the town.

Local volunteers and agencies were bolstered by teams from across the state and Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited the city to assess the damage.

At the heart of the emergency response to the crisis was James McTavish, who was the Murrumbidgee Region Controller for the NSW State Emergency Services (SES).

Despite the extent of the damage caused, Mr McTavish is still confident emergency responders were as well prepared as possible.

"We made a lot of mistakes, a whole heap of people got impacted but the reality is we were, I think, as well prepared as we could be," he said.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Mr McTavish believes the region was lucky to have suffered a less serious flood in 2010, which meant all the responders were well equipped for the challenges.

"We actually rehearsed that whole event in detail and because of that we knew what we had to do with homeless people, what to do with cancer patients, people who were in custody at the police station," he said.

"We had pretty advanced plans for all of those things and we were very fortunate we had the chance to take lessons from that flood two years earlier."

Hundreds of rescues were conducted by boats, trucks and helicopters and Mr McTavish said Wagga was incredibly lucky that nobody was killed by the floodwaters.

"To a certain extent you make your own luck though," he said.

Mr McTavish was awarded the Emergency Services Medal in 2013 for his efforts protecting Wagga people and homes during the flood.

He also remembers the way the Wagga community rallied together for the crisis, with many going out of their way to help protect others and their homes.

"One of the things that does stand out for me is the community spirit, particularly in places like North Wagga," Mr McTavish said.

"You can't manufacture that, you can't pretend. It is just something that is part of those communities.

"I will always have a soft spot in my heart for those people, they lived through enormously difficult times."

As the floodwaters seeped away and residents began calculating damages, the search began for ways to prevent a similar disaster from ever taking place.

Wagga City Council has since completed multiple projects designed to better protect the city from flooding events, including the construction of a brand new $23 million levee capable of protecting the CBD from one-in-100-year floods.

But for North Wagga, the suburb hit the hardest by the flood, council decided a one-in-20 year protection levee would be enough.

The decision was met with uproar by the tight-knit community, with many questioning why their suburb would not be given the same level of protection as the city centre.

Conflict over the decision has dragged on, leaving many residents feeling as though they are still just as at risk now as they were in 2012.

"We feel even less protected now," Mr Grentell said. "We could flood anytime and council keeps dragging their feet and not doing anything.

"They gave Wagga a levee bank and gave us nothing over here - we're still waiting."

Currently the community members are waiting for the outcome of a peer review of council's floodplain plans which they hope will show why their suburb requires one-in-100-year protection.

"The situation has absolutely not improved at all," Mrs Dawson said. "There's every chance we could get wet again and we've dodged a bullet four times already.

"There have been four times where we've had minor to moderate flood level where everybody thinks 'should we start packing things up?'."

Arguments over the levee have raged for years, seemingly fracturing the relationship between North Wagga residents and the council.

"There's a state policy to protect - and council have done everything in their power not to use it," Mrs Dawson said.

A spokesperson for Wagga City Council said as well as the completed projects, a number of key strategic documents have also been created which will "progress flood mitigation works" and assist in receiving government grants.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: