As Australia counts the cost of another deadly flooding disaster, thousands of residents are facing an agonising decision — to rebuild or relocate?
Relocation is a sensitive topic and notoriously hard to discuss in the aftermath.
Relocation is nothing new
The idea of relocating an entire town in response to natural disasters has been around for centuries.
Locals in the small rural community of Gundagai, in southern New South Wales, learnt about it the hard way when, in1852, the deadliest flood in Australia's history tore through town, killing more than 80 people.
Gordon Lindley's great great grandfather, Thomas Lindley, was away buying cattle when his wife and four young children were clinging to the roof a stable during the flood.
"The story is that she had the cash box with her but she apparently let that go and grabbed all the children and cuddled them as much as she could, and away they went," Mr Lindley explained.
"They did find the bodies, and they did bury them."
Indigenous warnings ignored
The scale of the tragedy was so great because of where the town had been settled, on the river flats of the Murrumbidgee.
White settlers and bureaucrats pushed ahead with that option in 1838, despite warnings from the local Wiradjuri people about the flood risk.
"Our people actually told them to move to the higher ground," Wiradjuri Warragul man Shane Herrington said.
The night of the 1852 flood, two Aboriginal men — Jacky Jacky and Yarri — selflessly paddled bark canoes through treacherous floodwaters to rescue about 70 people.
Those who survived, including Mr Lindley's great great grandfather, heeded the Aboriginal people's advice about building on higher ground and moved their town up a nearby hill.
Mr Lindley said the townsfolk had previously asked the state government for money to do that but their requests were knocked back.
It was only after the extensive loss of life in 1852 that the government agreed to pay for relocation the following year.
To this day, Gundagai's homes remain largely unaffected by floods.
If you're going to move, do it quickly
A much more recent example of relocation lies in Grantham, in regional Queensland.
In 2011, the Lockyer Regional Valley Council managed to move 120 households up a hill after what has been described as an "inland tsunami" swallowed the town, killing 13 residents.
Former mayor Steve Jones negotiated to buy 378 hectares of local farmland, which was divided into blocks and allocated to residents via a lottery system.
Flood victims exchanged their old land for the new blocks but had to pay for the construction of new homes themselves.
The final bill for the redevelopment was $30 million, with state and federal governments pitching in $9 million each.
The rest was covered by donations and the council, which still owes the bank millions.
The key, according to the project's director and planning expert Jamie Simmonds, was to "move quickly" and "just get it done".
Mr Simmonds said governments at all levels had consistently failed to plan for the longer term and should be putting money behind more land swaps.
"After every disaster, governments are going to come and say we spent billions of dollars cleaning up and blah de blah," he said.
"But who's paying the clean-up bill? Taxpayers.
'Better off if it burned'
Down the hill, those still living in the "old" Grantham are yet again cleaning up their flood-damaged homes.
An emotional Rebecca Sparkes lamented it would be easier if her house just burnt down. That way, she said, she might be able to afford to move.
She said she had not been able to afford to take part in the 2011 land swap because her insurance payout would not have covered the cost of rebuilding her home.
Now she and several other families in the same situation are pleading with local, state and federal governments to help them find a way.
"People need to feel safe, they need to be safe in their homes, and currently that's not the case," she said.
"Maybe if they can just help another 20 people move it would be enough to take the pressure off once again."
Finding land is half the battle
In the Tweed Shire in the Northern Rivers region, the council has been trying out an industrial land swap.
It is spending a $6 million state government grant moving businesses keen to get away from a low-lying, flood-prone part of Murwillumbah.
But the money has not gone far. It was only enough to buy land for eight businesses to move onto, while more than 100 other companies remain in the flood zone.
"It's not just about finding high land. You've got to find appropriate land," the council's engineering director David Oxenham said.
"There's plenty of flood-free land but it's constrained by environmental issues, such as water availability, availability of sewage services, whether there's native vegetation that can't be cleared, and so on."
The council has also been offering voluntary house purchases – or buybacks – at the market rate. But for many people living in disaster prone regions, a lack of affordable housing elsewhere means the option is off the table.
So, rather than fielding calls about relocation and buybacks in the aftermath of the recent one in 500-year flood, the shire has been inundated with enquiries about raising homes instead.
"We've had instances where people have raised their homes for flood mitigation, but then later down the track the property has been built-in underneath or used for storage of goods and equipment and this takes us back to square one," Mr Oxenham said.
"But it's an expensive and complex proposition to buy back homes in the current market and council certainly does not have the funding to do so.
"This would take considerable input from the state and federal governments."
Land swaps and buybacks light-on
Land swaps like Grantham's are rare here and overseas.
But there have been buybacks after bushfires and floods in Victoria, as well as along the Brisbane River.
The Queensland government has also just proposed a $771-million flood relief package that includes $350 million to buy back up to 500 homes.
And in New South Wales, the state government has helped councils buy 51 homes through its flood management program, although the state's Department of Planning and Environment would not say how much had been allocated or spent.
Land swap helps Mayor sleep at night
Lockyer Regional Valley Council still owes $6.3 million from the Grantham relocation, but Mayor Tanya Milligan considered it to have been money well spent.
Nobody in the new estate was affected by recent floods, and that, she said, "helped her sleep at night".
Ms Milligan said it was time for policymakers to be more open to funding land swaps in the face of a changing climate.
"I think it really is about local governments having a really eyes wide open conversation, but it's not just local government, it is that national conversation," she said.
"Who's responsible, how's it going to be paid, is it just about floods, is it going to be about bushfire? I feel like I have more questions than answers."
