A year on from Lismore’s devastating floods the community has paused to reflect, reviving painful memories for many exhausted residents still waiting to have a permanent home again.
Five lives were lost and more than 3000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the NSW Northern Rivers city on February 28 last year, when a month of record rain raised the Wilsons River to a record high of 14.4 metres.
On Tuesday evening residents met for a gathering of reflection and healing, which included messages of hope from local pastors, musical performances and a minute’s silence.
The memorial followed a private ceremony acknowledging the herculean effort of those involved in the “tinnie flotilla”, who ferried hundreds of people from rooftops to safety.
The event kicks off three weeks of events in the city, including a music festival in the CBD this weekend and a celebrity cricket match on March 11.
Governor General David Hurley told the assembled crowd that there were many strands to recovery.
“The community heals as individuals, then the community heals and grows together,” he said.
“I’m an optimist for what I see every day in my travels around Australia.
“Through bushfires, pandemic, floods and drought, I’ve seen some of the best qualities you could hope to see in people.
“I see something special and different in this community.
“I see a community that put its hand up collectively when it was under stress and got itself through – and is doing exactly the same now as it tries to recover.”
Lismore mayor Steve Krieg said this first anniversary will be tough for the community.
“It is still so emotional,” he told ABC TV on Tuesday.
“We have thousands of people living in temporary accommodation, they’re paying mortgages on houses that are unliveable.”
About 60 per cent of businesses have returned to the CBD, but the relocation of schools means hundreds of their customers have gone.
Ella Buckland, whose house was inundated with 1.5 metres of water, said when the crisis hit everyone was running on adrenaline.
“Now everyone is just exhausted,” she told AAP.
The anniversary of the disaster revived painful memories for Harper Dalton.
“I wasn’t aware previously … how traumatised I am by what’s happened in our community and losing everything,” he said.
Mr Dalton, who is still waiting to find out if the government will move his home to higher ground as part of a $700 million recovery scheme, thought he would be further down the recovery track.
“I’m pretty disappointed and feeling greater desperation as more time goes on, because it could technically flood next week or next month and nothing’s changed.”
National Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and state Labor leader Chris Minns attended the evening memorial.
Amid criticism for the speed of the government’s buyback scheme, Mr Perrottet noted the mammoth task facing authorities and the community.
“It will be a challenge and we will stand with those communities, as we have over the last 12 months,” he said on Monday.
Mr Minns, in the Northern Rivers town of Tumbulgum ahead of the memorial, said Labor had kept a close eye on the rollout of comparable home buyback grants in Queensland, where the government had offered to buy more than 130 homes.
“I think there’s lessons to be learned between the two jurisdictions,” he said.
“I’m going to leave that for another day because today is obviously about the commemoration of lives lost.”
NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann said less than half of Lismore’s flood victims have been able to find new homes.
“If you compare what has happened with the Queensland government offering support … the NSW government is way too slow, Ms Faehrmann said.
The first home buyback offers were issued on February 21, with all 250 offers expected to be issued by April.
By Phoebe Loomes, Stephanie Gardiner, Rudi Maxwell and Luke Costin in Lismore
