NSW Premier Mike Baird has called on flood victims to "hang tough" as the superstorm slowly moves down the south coast.
Three people died in flood waters on Tuesday in the NSW Hunter region with another two people reportedly missing after a car washed away in a creek on Wednesday.
"Obviously the areas particularly impacted in the Hunter, Newcastle and across the Central Coast, we ask those communities to hang tough," Mr Baird said.
He said "areas such as Dungog and Maitland, parts of the Central Coast" would be declared natural disaster zones but a state of emergency would not be called.
"The state of emergency really gives you additional powers in terms of asking people to be removed from a particular area and act very quickly in response to very severe situations," he said.
"Clearly at the moment, with the storm easing, we're beyond that and what's going to be the key focus is getting our communities back on their feet.
"The financial assistance with the natural disaster declaration is the best thing we can do right now."
Mr Baird urged people against non-essential travel in impacted areas.
"These are quite extraordinary circumstances and my encouragement to everyone is to be as sensible as you can and, really, to have close to 100 rescue events, shows people are not only putting their own lives at risk but the lives of our emergency workers at risk," he said.
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