This may not mean much to anyone apart from those living in Lismore who received yesterday’s ridiculous ‘flood map’. But I need to vent.
In February 2022 I prepared for the flood – really well. The best flood prep you could manage.
I then watched the river levels rise to wipe out the second storey of my home, taking everything with it. I was shocked and bewildered. I had no insurance because I couldn’t afford the $20k.
I returned home to manage the cleanup. Add exhausted and traumatised.
I cleaned up enough space to move back in… camp style… add broken to the ever-increasing list.
I registered with the NRRC (Northern Rivers Reconstruction Commission) to make sure my property was considered for a potential buyback/ landswap/ house raising/ resilient material (retrofit) funding.
I live in a flood zone
I waited, but couldn’t put my life on hold so began the rebuilding process. I was still shocked, bewildered, exhausted, traumatised, broken, and now depressed. Oh, and getting broke… it costs a lot to rebuild a house.
I had to sit and listen to people, outside the trauma, express their intellectually rounded opinions on the fact that, well, ‘you knew you lived in a flood zone’. That made me furious. And I’ll explain why.
Yes, I know I live in a flood zone. But, man, I can handle a flood. I have handled a flood. I’ve lived here for a long time now. But I can’t handle a natural disaster…
Would you blame someone whose house was destroyed in a cyclone? No! What about an earthquake? No! Then why, tell me why, we are being penalised for this catastrophic event just because it floods here?
We are prepared – we’re not idiots!
We know what to do in a flood. We move everything up. We tie up the bins. We take off the hoses. We weight down any toilets and drains downstairs to stop the sewage backflow. We stock up on water and food. We grab batteries for the radio. Get the gas bottle filled so we can cook if the power goes out. We check the torch. We fill up the bathtub with drinking water. We check the canned goods. We move the cars. We ship out our pets to friends. We make sure the hoses are handy to get the cleanup underway.
Our farmers have a whole other routine. There’s stock to consider and farm equipment. And our businesses have another set of routines they manage. We’re not idiots. Far from it. And when the water recedes we wash off the mud, we regroup and we get on with life. Because we’re seasoned flood veterans. But what none of us are, are seasoned disaster survivors.
So stop pushing this back on us, please. Stop changing the goal posts please government. Stop halving the number of houses being considered for buyback. Stop giving half-arsed information about land swaps and buybacks. Stop thinking it’s okay to have people living in caravans, tents and pod villages 16 months after the disaster!
Stop issuing maps that are illegible and confusing. Stop expecting business owners who have lost their livelihoods to apply for 20 jobs every, what? fortnight, to receive benefits? Whatever it is, it’s ridiculous in a region that has been devastated by floods where there are no jobs, especially if you’ve reached the ripe old age of 60. Jesus!
Stop expecting Year 12 students to be unaffected, even though they’re living in unfinished work zones, with borrowed clothes and parents who are too tired to engage in school interviews and pushing homework schedules after working 40 hours a week whilst also rebuilding houses out of their own pocket and dealing with their own trauma.
Put a reasonable offer on the table
I could go on. The list is long. It’s frustrating. It’s tiring. There’s so much that needs to… just… stop.
You want to move North and South Lismore residents out of the area? Then, fine. Get the land, subsidise the fuck out of it and come to the table with a reasonable offer. Don’t expect people to accept a pre-flood housing price that doesn’t allow for people to buy back into the market, because, well again, it’s a historical figure that now means jack shit!
Where will we live?
Stop expecting people to accept an offer without knowing where they will live.
Is it so hard to fathom that there is now a housing shortage? And there’s always been a land shortage. Is it hard to fathom that since the flood, rental properties and saleable stock is reduced, which, by my basic economics education, has pushed demand and therefore prices up through the fucking whazoo?
It’s like giving 2,000 people a $50 voucher and sending them off to the Sheraton Mirage that only has one penthouse suite on offer. See how appealing and successful that approach is?
Timely help needed
All I wanted was a considered and reasonable response that was well-communicated, with sensitivity, in a timely fashion. And in the meantime, I just needed help. Help to put up my walls. Help to paint. Help to plumb. Help to lay some flooring. Help to rebuild the deck and stairs. Labour and help, instead of having to rely on friends and partners and chip away at those relationships.
Instead all I’ve received is half-arsed enticements, filtered through informal channels, with a gross lack of humanity, after so long that you can only believe there must have been a hope we’d all just either leave Lismore or give up and rely on volunteers and community support to begin the rebuild.
The 2022 flooding disaster in Lismore is the second worst disaster event in Australian history behind Cyclone Tracy.
The Australian government should be ashamed of their fractured, under-funded, poorly communicated response.
I know I am.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
