Sandy Xia's former home resembles a bombsite: The ceiling has caved in, plaster litters the rooms where she once played with her 17-month-old son.
The flood washed away toys, furniture, clothes, passports and birth certificates.
However, miraculously, it left behind something the mother could not replace.
"These photos of me with my grandma," Ms Xia tells the ABC.
As Galah Street in Rocklea, in Brisbane's south, flooded late at night in February, Ms Xia carried her son, Nulan, through waist-deep water to escape.
The single-storey home was under water for a week and the family would spend the next month and a half living out of hotels.
Eventually, she and her partner found a rental but the family had to share that home with five strangers.
The day after moving in, the accountant returned to work.
In May, registrations opened for the Resilient Homes Fund, jointly paid for by the state and federal government.
Home owners with flood-damaged properties could apply for grants to raise, repair and retrofit their houses, or have the government buy it back.
Ms Xia chose the buy back option.
"[It was] the only option for me," she says. "These places I think are unrepairable now."
First home approved for flood buyback
On Friday, Ms Xia received a contract and became the first of 23 flood-affected property owners to accept a buyback offer.
She believes it was a fair offer, determined by a valuer's estimation of the home's value before the flood.
"I did some research afterwards as well, to look at the market price before [the] flood. I think that it is a very fair price in my area before the flood," Ms Xia says.
So far, 40 offers have been presented to Ipswich and Brisbane residents, with more than 200 properties identified for buyback, according to joint statement from the federal and state government.
About $350 million is set aside for the purchase of flood-prone homes.
"We expect this to secure the purchase of around 500 homes," federal Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt says.
As of Friday, 529 people had registered for the voluntary buyback scheme.
Once Ms Xia's contract goes through, her house will be boarded up and eventually demolished. The block will be turned into council parkland.
But not everyone on Galah Street wants to move.
Keith Williams is a World War II veteran, as well as a veteran of Brisbane floods.
He has lived in his low-lying home for more than 60 years, enduring the infamous floods of 1974 and 2011, as well as this year's.
"[February's flood] was the worst for us because, as we've got old, it hurts us more," the 99-year-old says.
Mr Williams says he and his wife are not interested in the government's buyback scheme.
"I wouldn't care if they give me a million mate. This is mine," he says.
"This is our home."
Speaking to the ABC from his freshly painted and carpeted living room, Mr Williams says insurance covered the repairs.
The water that came into his home was only centimetres below the ceiling.
"Luckily, it took the costs down. They didn't have to take the ceiling out," he says.
Mr Williams says moving or raising the house would be too difficult at his age. He would rather stay — even though he knows another flood is inevitable.
Moorooka Ward Councillor Steve Griffiths says the homes in the area should never have been approved.
"With Sandy and her home, there has been water through the floorboards every two years," he says.
"It was approved a long time ago."
The Brisbane City Council has been helping implement the buyback scheme after it scrapped its own.
"We can't fix flooding here in this part of Rocklea," Cr Griffiths said.
"Longer term, flooding's going to continue. It looks like it's going to get worse, so let's get a solution, and let's get these houses that are particularly bad off the market."
