Aslan Shand
The community response to the devastation wrought by the flooding of the Northern Rivers had been incredible and stories abound of people of all ages coming together to assist one another through this heartbreaking time.
From gangs of teenagers roaming the streets to assist cleaning up flood-damaged houses to builders and electricians and other skilled tradespeople just going house to house to get houses safe and running again to people building roads and provisioning food and shelter – the community has become the hero.
Getting hot meals to 10,000 people yesterday the Flood Relief Cook Up (https://bit.ly/3HV0O26) has seen a huge group of chefs and hospitality people come together ‘from practically every restaurant and bakery etc in the area’ to deliver meals. They are being supported not only by locals who are driving meals throughout the region to people in need, but have managed to get five helicopters on board to deliver to those who are unable to get out of their homes.
‘The delivery is incredibly well organised,’ said volunteer driver and Echo sales person Lesley Hannaford. ‘They use WhatsApp and call out when they need things and people just shout out within a minute or two and within five mins it’s taken care of.’
On their Instagram page, Natural Icecream Australia’s Wal Foster posted that yesterday Rotorwing Helicopters had given the ‘Green Light’ to use five of their choppers to get ‘warm meals directly to people we can’t access, people still flooded in after five days!’
