As flood water recedes there is trauma, homelessness and fear about the future.
Towns more than 700kms apart now face a similar fate — home to Australia's flood 'refugees'.
Eli Roth comes from a place where lush creeks meander behind backyards and the neighbours know each other by name.
They are no strangers to flooding in this low-lying area of South Lismore.
"This is just a way of our life. It's like the trade-off for living in paradise," he says.
“Have you seen behind me? It’s beautiful.”
But in February this year he clambered onto his roof as the flood became a torrent. He watched his possessions slip away and wondered if he would be next.
The flood trauma runs right across Australia's east coast.
Some people in Western Sydney are going through their fourth major flood in 18 months, and thousands of residents have been subjected to flood evacuation warnings.
Including people who've just bought in brand new developments and are upset they weren't told more about the flood risk for their new homes.
Jigar Gosai got the keys for his home, which he says cost him about $1.2m, just six weeks ago.
"It's difficult to sleep because I don't know what will happen. It's life threatening and I invest a lot of money, like my whole life's money in this house. So it's scary," he says.
Eli Roth understood his home was at risk – but didn't expect things to get so bad.
"It went from major catastrophic to next level really fast. We almost slipped and drowned. We spent five hours on the roof, watching just carnage," he says.
"I've been to my mate's funeral who actually drowned. I've buried my mother's animals who drowned."
Eli is trying to rebuild his home but he's traumatised by what he's been through.
"The mental health side of things is incredibly real. I'm only 29 years old and I've never been reliant on any prescription medications in my life, but Valium, I wouldn't be doing this without it. And the alcohol, of course, has picked up," he says.
"The PTSD, the trauma is real. If it rains, we freak out."
Now, there's talk of moving people like Eli and his neighbours out of low-lying parts of Lismore and relocating the CBD so this disaster can't repeat itself.
Already, a council discussion paper has recommended moving some of the most at-risk residents under a land-swap arrangement.
With Australia in the midst of an ongoing flood catastrophe, governments across the country are struggling with how to future-proof residential areas and where to allow new developments.
Andrew Hall from the Insurance Council of Australia says it is a matter of life and death.
"This hideous event will repeat. It may not be next year, may not be in the next three years, but you can guarantee the CBD of Lismore will go under 10 metres of water or plus again, and the same destruction will happen," he says.
Eli Roth says he isn't going anywhere.
He says people should be able to access buy-backs if that's what they want, but he and many of his neighbours don't want to leave.
"I've never met a stronger community in my life. I was born and raised here. So that's exactly why I want to stay," he says.
"It can be fixed. We just need to hurry up."
'I don't know what to do'
In the nearby town of Coraki, Binny McElligott would do anything to have a place of her own.
Since her rented house flooded in February she and five of her children have been living with her sister.
"I will often just come down and sit in my car and cry, cause I don't know what to do," she says.
There's often 18 people in a four-bedroom, one bathroom home with two caravans out the front.
"I never thought at 44 years of age that I would be homeless, and not be able to provide for my children," Binny says.
Binny, her daughter and one of her sons sleep in the garage.
"I honestly don't know what I would have done if Lorraine hadn't taken us in."
"We're there for each other. I cry on her shoulder; she cries on mine."
Binny says seeing how the situation is affecting her kids is hard.
"It's the stuff like that that breaks my heart because I can't fix it."
Her son Jesiah begins to cry when talking about what they've lost. So much couldn't be salvaged.
"It was heartbreaking … just all the stuff that's just been washed away," Jesiah says.
He's now living in a caravan outside his aunt's house.
It's a big improvement after months in a tent in the backyard.
With no idea when their home will be fixed, and rentals in the area too expensive, the family lives in limbo.
At their damaged home, repairs haven't begun.
"All my life I've been good at helping people fix things, or fix things for my kids, and this is one thing that I feel I can't fix," Binny says.
"If I had something I knew I could work towards, I think it would make it a bit better. But I don't have any direction."
'There's people just melting'
Mark O'Toole says no one in the Northern Rivers is doing well.
People who've finished knocking down walls — as he puts it, "cleaning house with a sledgehammer" — now face long waits of potentially years to rebuild.
After losing his house, now he sleeps on a friend's couch and spends most of his time dropping off supplies and donated goods to those in need, and chatting with those who are struggling.
"All their adrenaline has worn off"
Lismore's Mayor Steve Krieg is frustrated with the lack of progress, but hopes the rebuilding of Lismore can be an example for the rest of the country.
"If we can fund the buybacks and the land swaps and the strategic planning of the city to make it a safe city regardless of whether it's in the flood plain or not," he says.
"If we can do that, that's going to save governments a lot of money into the future for what is undoubtedly going to happen again."
Fears over being able to sell property
In western Sydney, residents are painfully aware of the consequences of building on a floodplain.
Last week, Brant and DeAnn Gilliver's home in South Windsor flooded for the third time in 15 months.
The Gillivers' home sits on a floodplain for the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers and it's one of the biggest flood risks in the country.
When they bought the place 11 years ago it was all the Gillivers could afford – but the large block suited them, and it overlooked the local sports ground.
They say the real estate agent told them the house had a one in 100-year flood risk, but like many, they assumed that meant it could flood once every hundred years and they thought it was worth the risk.
The term actually means there is a 1 per cent chance of flooding to a certain level in a given year. And that seems a wildly optimistic assessment of their risk: council documents indicate their property's flood risk is more like 1 in 20.
Over the last 15 months they've repeatedly watched this vista turn into a waterworld. Now they want out. But with the home no longer insurable, they fear they'd never be able to sell.
"I feel pretty trapped. We're in a situation where we've got to just make this place as floodproof as we can get it, so that if this happens again, it's just a matter of hosing the joint out and starting again," Brant said.
Despite all this, more and more homes are being built not far from the Gillivers.
The NSW government says rezoning in the Hawkesbury-Nepean valley has been paused, but it's estimated as many as 54,000 homes could be built in the North West Growth Area where land has already been rezoned, although not all this area is classified as flood-prone.
In late 2021, the then-NSW planning minister Rob Stokes announced development guidelines to tackle the increasing risk of floods caused by climate change.
Developers were unhappy, saying the changes created unnecessary red tape and duplication.
In March, new Planning Minister Anthony Roberts announced he would axe the guidelines.
Standing before an audience of property developers in April, Minister Roberts went further, saying: "There were too many principles and considerations which made your job of delivering homes for people harder, can I say I've heard you and the government's heard you."
Professor Elizabeth Mossop, the dean of design, architecture and building at The University of Technology Sydney, says it doesn't make sense to continue with a business-as-usual approach.
"We cannot afford to put people in places that are at high risk.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the NSW Department of Planning and Environment said "any next steps in relation to the Hawkesbury Nepean will be guided by the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Flooding.
"Specific directions remain that require a range of natural hazards to be considered by consent authorities, including flooding."
Watch the full investigation on Four Corners tonight at 8:30pm on ABC TV or on ABC iview.
Credits
- Story by Adam Harvey, Bonny Symons-Brown, Ariel Bogle and Annabel Hennessy
- Digital production: Laura Gartry, Nick Wiggins and Brigid Andersen
- Photography: Tajette O'Halloran and Maddy King
