The bodies of two men have been found inside cars swept up in floodwaters in separate incidents in NSW, after the state was battered by severe storms.

Emergency services were called to Leppington in Sydney’s southwest on Sunday evening after reports a white ute entering a causeway had been washed away.

Police and State Emergency Service workers searched the flood-ravaged area into the night without success, before finding the man’s body inside his vehicle early on Monday morning.

Police divers retrieved the man’s body at about 11.30am on Monday and efforts were underway to winch his ute from Rileys Creek.

In a separate incident near Bowral, in the state’s Southern Highlands, emergency services descended on Mittagong Creek on Sunday evening after a car was spotted in floodwaters with its hazard lights flashing.

A fruitless search on Sunday evening ended in tragedy Monday morning, when the body of a 65-year-old man was discovered inside his vehicle.

The man is yet to be formally identified and investigations are ongoing.

News of the men’s deaths came after a 37-year-old Canberra man died after his car was caught in floodwaters near the Cotter Dam.

Police found the Kambah man about 4.30pm on Sunday but were unable to retrieve the body until Monday morning.

Police spotted the man’s vehicle after they were called out to a separate incident involving two men who had been four-wheel driving and realised they couldn’t cross the swollen river.

While emergency workers were trying to work out how to rescue the man, his four-wheel drive was swept away by the floods and flipped over.

The man’s body was seen shortly after on an island in the middle of the river.

“The floodwaters yesterday … were extremely strong, savage, with a lot of debris, large logs coming down the river,” ACT Policing Sergeant Harry Hains told reporters in Canberra.

“The force was enough to flip a two-tonne ute.”

In Tasmania, police hold grave concerns for two elderly people missing as heavy rain drenches the island state.

Search and rescue specialists are searching in Ouse after reports a man in his 80s may have been swept away by flood waters.

Another elderly man was rescued from his Latrobe home earlier on Monday morning by helicopter as water inundated his home but his wife is missing.

The storm blast that struck the east coast over the weekend has also wreaked significant property damage, with homes on Sydney’s northern beaches partially washed away in the violent storms.

Residents are reeling after king tides caused by heavy storms on the NSW east coast claimed the yards of several beachfront properties in Collaroy.

Sydneysider Garry Silk has just one word to describe how he feels after his million-dollar Collaroy beachfront property was damaged by king tides: “Shattered”.

The 62-year-old spent the weekend watching the surf slowly eat away at his backyard, inching closer and closer to his home.

After leaving on Sunday night, Silk returned on Monday morning to find 15 metres of his yard claimed by the waves and the inground swimming pool lying on the beach.

“It started getting hairy at 4.30pm yesterday when we lost our rear fence and then it actually undermined the house,” Silk told AAP.

“We’ve lost our garden.”

Silk, a resident of Pittwater Road, said he and his neighbours were the only beachfront residents in the area without a sea wall.

The Warringah Council would not allow anyone to build sea protection on council land, he said.

“We moved in three years ago. We talked to council, but it’s a bit late now,” he said.

“This is the only strip without sea protection.”

Seven beachside homes and a unit block were evacuated about 8pm on Sunday night as eight-metre waves slammed the coast leading to major erosion.

Silk’s sister-in-law Susie Cummins, of Clontarf, said the experience was a surreal one.

“There was water up to the road,” Cummins said. “There was even a crab walking along.”

Storms lashed the east coast of NSW at the weekend, with Sydney’s northern beaches one of the areas worst affected.

Waves up to eight metres high crashed against local shores, damaging million dollar homes and causing heavy damage to the Collaroy Beach Club.

Collaroy Surf Club has been severely damaged by the pounding surf and the nearby Collaroy Beach Club has its second storey balcony collapsing onto the beach.

State Emergency Service engineers will assess the properties on Monday.

More damage could be on the way after the Bureau of Meteorology warned of the possibility of another king tide at 9pm.
Collaroy beachfront resident Thomas Falvo, 41, had his own sea wall installed on his property at great expense but his house suffered minimal damage.

“That’s part of living on the beach,” Falvo said. “Obviously government has not really helped on its part.”

Northern beaches residents spent Monday morning walking along the debris-littered beach taking photos and surveying the damage.

Collaroy resident Mark Quinlan, 59, said the storm’s intensity on Sunday night was frightening.

“It’s not the same but it gives you an indication of what it must be like when a cyclone hits, because the winds were just cyclonic,” he said.

NSW Premier Mike Baird was due to tour the area after noon on Monday.

– with AAP