Logan Madeley had never met her two elderly neighbours before.
In Lagoon Grass, just outside the north-eastern New South Wales regional centre of Lismore, their home sat 2km away across a series of paddocks and roads.
They had no reason to cross paths – that is until a deluge of rain from unprecedented flash flooding turned the paddocks that parted them into a lake more than four metres deep.
Late on Monday, Madeley looked across rising waters and saw her neighbours’ house, tin roofed and painted white, “go under”.
When Madeley woke up the next morning, she checked the Lismore Community Resilience & Recovery group on Facebook – a habit developed over recent days. There, locals from the flooded region and concerned relatives had been sharing photos and addresses with urgent calls for rescue, and updates of evacuation to safety.
“I heard from all the other neighbours on Facebook, but nothing from them,” she says. “And as far as my research on Facebook could find, they hadn’t been contacted in quite a long time.
“Their daughter was upset and concerned and I thought, what am I going to do? Sit at home?”
So, at 7.30am on Tuesday she “went off in a kayak” to the couple’s home.
When Madeley reached their house, she spotted an overturned boat.
“I was concerned, and kayaked past their windows,” she says. “I saw their whole life just floating around inside the house.”
Madeley yelled out to them, and, relieved, heard them yell back. She kayaked to the back of the house, where she found the woman and man inside a boat. They had been stranded with no food or water.
“She asked, where are you from? And I said, I’m from up the road. Well, the river.”
Madeley offered them her phone, and dropped off a bag of water, Panadol and non-perishables like Up&Go drinks and cans of spaghetti and beans.
“It is about all I can do,” she says.
Fifteen minutes later, a motorised tinnie came past. “They were doing a check on them as well.” The tinnie then towed Madeley in her kayak back home.
Local Logan Madeley in Lagoon Grass region, just outside of #Lismore, being towed back to her home by a motorised tinnie this morning.
— Rafqa Touma (@At_Raf_) March 1, 2022
She kayaked this morning to her neighbour’s home that went under yesterday. Pre flooding, this area is usually roads.@callapilla @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/ZLpIyxer2X
After “losing everything”, she says the couple “did not want to be rescued” to an evacuation centre. “They lost all their animals, three cars, their windows were all broken and the side of the house has caved in.
“I think they are just waiting for the water to go down, to see what is left.”
As the national flood death toll rises to nine, and tens of thousands of claims are made for disaster support, unprecedented flash floods have left residents of Queensland and north-eastern NSW regions devastated. In turn, a wave of content has inundated social media, sharing distressing footage from the ground – of locals trapped and cold in waist-high waters inside their homes, and calls for help from rooftops.
The ABC’s Gavin Coote shared the perspective of Dean Pagotto in South Lismore to Twitter from a rooftop overlooking the main road, Union Street. Vehicles floated in the water, and only tops of light poles and buildings were visible.
In South Lismore, Dean Pagotto’s perspective of Union Street, the main road heading out toward Casino where car dealerships are underwater pic.twitter.com/4LcbjA8x6o
— Gavin Coote (@GavinCoote) February 27, 2022
From Ballina, where residents were told to evacuate immediately early this morning, James O’Brien shared the flooding of Ballina Street Bridge to Twitter, comparing the area before and after, “in normal circumstances” and “today with rescue boats”.
LISMORE FLOODS : To illustrate how bad this is, this is the Ballina Street Bridge in normal circumstances, and this is the Ballina Street Bridge today, with rescue boats. pic.twitter.com/TNGyzgfH2u
— James O'Brien 🏳️🌈 (@jcjobau) February 28, 2022
The Guardian Australia’s Conal Hanna shared footage of people wading through water on the M1 highway between Coffs Harbour and the Tweed shire. Some of the hundreds of cars had been stranded for more than 24 hours.
Thousands of people remain stranded on the M1 highway between Coffs Harbour and Tweed, some of them having spent 30 hours there. @caitecassidy pic.twitter.com/UdFHMQcpu1
— Conal Hanna (@conalhanna) March 1, 2022
And locals shared experiences rushing to leave their homes following evacuation notices, with the ABC’s Chelsea Hetherington tweeting that about 40,000 Australians were subject to evacuation orders, and 300,000 to evacuation warnings.
Lismore resident Andre Gimblett, his wife and two-year-old daughter were among the thousands of Australians forced to evacuate. They are now living with strangers after losing everything they owned to the flood waters on Sunday night.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says the SES has carried out more than 1k flood rescues and has received 6k calls for assistance. 40k are subject to evacuation orders, 300k are affected by evacuation warnings. Natural disaster declarations have been made for 17 LGAs. @abcnews
— Chelsea Hetherington (@chelsea_hetho) February 28, 2022
“We left about midnight [Monday], we got a couple of big bags, but we didn’t get everything,” Gimblett says.
“It was so quick, I started saying to my wife around 5pm, ‘We need to go, we need to go’, and we only just got out because the water was coming so fast.”
The family thought they would have an extra day to evacuate.
“They were saying we’ll let you know on Monday when to evacuate, then Sunday night they were driving the SES van around saying, ‘You must evacuate now, leave now, the road out of Lismore will be blocked’.”
The Gimbletts, who were renting after moving to the northern rivers 18 months ago, went to a Lismore evacuation centre but strangers opened their home and the three were now staying in the village of Alstonville, 15km east.
“It was someone who came around with a note to the evac centre, helping people who were vulnerable,” he says.
“Most of the world is full of good people. It’s just that we hear the bad stuff so much more than the good.”
Similar stories of generous efforts by strangers have flooded online groups, where local communities have come together to offer safe shelter, share supplies and support, and to search for stranded people.
Across Facebook, long lists of addresses were posted sharing locations of people in need of supplies or rescue. Alongside these lists were photos of missing people, and countless posts offering help – from people on safe ground with boats able to pick up stranded locals, to others with fuel for boats, baby supplies, medical goods and non-perishable foods.
With a video of jet skis in flooded roads and people huddled in the rain near Lismore Square, Louise Hardman posted into the group a rescue callout. “10+ boats and jet skis and 2 army trucks,” she wrote. “Send any urgent requests through.”
LISMORE FLOOD UPDATE : Friend tells me of someone he knows who has lost 300 head of cattle. They just floated away.
— James O'Brien 🏳️🌈 (@jcjobau) February 28, 2022
And users did not forget animals and livestock in danger.
On Twitter, James O’Brien shared an anecdote of 300 cattle that “floated away”, while Olivia Grace Curran tweeted a photo of a cow standing at Point Danger, believed to have travelled 33.9km from Murwillumbah to have gotten to the NSW and Queensland border, and then another of a cow spotted on Duranbah Beach.
UPDATE: Cow now on Duranbah Beach. @nbnnews @9NewsSyd @9NewsGoldCoast pic.twitter.com/sq20Dv5ToU
— Olivia Grace-Curran (@livgracecurran) March 1, 2022
Krystal Sunni posted to Facebook offering a dry paddock nearby and trailer resources “if anyone is needing horses trailered out to higher ground”, and Danielle Nicole Volbrecht was one of a number of users who posted to offer assistance with animal rescue and invite people with “doggies looking for shelter” to reach out.
Another user, Angus Curnow, posted an image of female mastiff he found on a road in South Lismore, looking for its owner. In the comments of the post, the owner of the dog, Tameka Devine, wrote: “This is my dog … in tears right now … we are all so amazed.” She told Guardian Australia “it was such a miracle to hear she was found”.
“Although we still have three of her puppies missing, she is … really happy to be back with us.”
On Instagram, small businesses have posted offers of resources and support.
Byron Bay-based furniture store The Rattan Collective posted an offer of mattresses and bassinets. In a caption on Instagram, they said: “We are currently flooded in ourselves and Lismore isn’t accessible for now, but we have around 10 bed mattresses of various sizes & some baby bassinets also, that we can supply once the roads are open again.”
And while popular travel page TheGCBible listed donation collection points, and national mental health charity Sane Australia offered services for those traumatised by the flood, Hotel Brunswick in Brunswick Heads opened its doors to people who “need a place to go to stay safe” following evacuation.
Back in Lagoon Grass, Logan Madeley reflected on the community spirit that had spurred ordinary people to do the extraordinary.
“Isn’t it just the Australian spirit?” she says.
“There are hundreds of people in boats doing rescues because SES is inundated. And Facebook is the paper trail to get to people who need help.”
