Washed away: the struggle to make sense of the northern rivers floods, the largest in modern Australian history

Long after the water had receded, visual reminders of its power remained. Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

The rain battering our roof came in violent waves, reaching crescendos that seemed impossible to exceed, only to intensify further and further throughout the night.

Messages between friends and neighbours filled my phone on 28 February 2022. My family and our home, on a hill and a safe distance from any waterways, was out of harm’s way. Thousands of others in the northern rivers region of New South Wales were not. Their lives and their communities had changed forever.

I was new to the region and naive about its susceptibility to floods.

A home in Upper Wilsons Creek that was carried away by a landslide Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

One 40-year resident of Upper Wilsons Creek told me that on the night of 27 February 2022 he called 000 to warn that Lismore was in danger. The dispatcher responded: ‘It’s too late, mate, Lismore’s gone.’ Pictured: Liz McConnell and her son Reuben Ferguson cross a washed-out bridge on their way to their home in Upper Wilsons Creek Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

South Lismore, 23 March 2022 Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

In the preceding days, a series of weather systems had combined over an already-saturated landscape in north-east NSW and south-east Queensland. Normally each system would result in moderate flooding. Collectively, they created a monster. The largest flood event in modern Australian history was unfolding.

Hundreds of locals sprang into action. Flotillas of civilian boats, jetskis, kayaks and standup paddle boards rescued people. SES and regional services were overwhelmed. Few had predicted the scale or ferocity of the rising water and entire communities were engulfed. Communications in many areas were cut off.

Some areas of the northern rivers received 60% of their yearly rainfall average in a week. Pictured: debris clogs the underside of the Ballina Street Bridge that sits high above Wilsons River in Lismore Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

A child-sized coffin sits among other debris on the edge of a playing field in South Lismore Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

The northern rivers floods of 2022 became the most expensive disaster in Australian history. Insurance premiums in the area were extremely high – so many residents had no insurance at all Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

For one of the first times in my career as a photojournalist I felt a strong aversion to making pictures. I have covered natural disasters before, but this time it was my own community. Somehow it just didn’t feel right. Instead I was pulled into duty as a volunteer, joining thousands of others armed with mops, gurneys and bleach.

The first house I arrived at belonged to an elderly couple whose home in Mullumbimby had been submerged.About 15 of us worked for two hours to pile their possessions in a saturated heap on the side of the road, the house an empty shell. Despite the necessity of the task, it felt insensitive. The couple appeared to be in shock.

When the Lismore levee was overtopped, the central business district was inundated with water two storeys deep. Businesses in the city relied on generators for months Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

In many flood-affected areas the use of asbestos was widespread. The building material becomes extremely dangerous if broken, with the potential to become airborne. Pictured: a pile of broken asbestos lies crudely marked on the side of a road in South Lismore. Days after this photo was taken a second flood flowed through the area, carrying the debris with it Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

For weeks after the floods, masses of sea foam and debris washed up on northern rivers beaches as swollen waterways emptied into the sea. Severely damaged sewage treatment plants in Lismore also dumped millions of litres of raw sewage into the Wilsons River. Pictured: Seven Mile beach, Lennox Head, NSW, 10 April 2022 Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

While clearing out a motorcycle repair shop in one hard-hit part of South Lismore, I came across an elderly woman. She was disoriented, shaking and unsteady. The shaking was from Parkinson’s disease and she had returned to her house for the first time in search of her medication. Her home was utterly destroyed and I told her it wasn’t safe to go near it. When asked if there was someone I could call for her she said she had no family. Since escaping the flood she had been sleeping on a stranger’s couch in a nearby town.

Similar stories played out repeatedly. In town after town, the contents of people’s private lives were turned outwards, forming mountains of debris. In the summer heat the smell was overpowering. Unnatural scenes that only natural disasters of this scale provide seemed suddenly normal: cars on roofs, houses disappeared, refrigerators 10 metres off the ground in trees.

Before the floods, Petersons quarry outside Coraki was a gigantic empty lot. The site was repurposed to manage more than 225 million kg of waste generated by the deluge Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

In the months that followed the flooding, many neighbourhoods sat largely abandoned, eerily dark at night with power still unavailable. Moondi Nelson was one of the only people on her street to return, sleeping in a caravan in her driveway. Her nightly bonfire provided her a feeling of cleansing Photograph: David Maurice Smith/The Guardian

Eventually, after weeks of cleaning, I decided to make my first trip out with my camera. National attention was waning, the events fading from the memories of those not affected. On the ground, the recovery task seemed Sisyphean.

Over the past year and a half I have continued making pictures in an effort to make sense of the floods. Communities are still broken. Thousands have left the area. Homes are abandoned. An already serious housing crisis has become dire. Community services are at their limit. Nervous homeowners wait to hear if they will be offered a government buyback of their properties.

Recently I came upon a retired couple shifting items from a moving truck into a still battered house in South Lismore. In the 14 months since being rescued as water surged above their roof, they had shuffled between emergency shelters, hotels, short stay accommodation and family. Having run out of options they were forced to move back in. Like many others they are hoping for a government buyback, but were still waiting for a decision. They had listed their home with a real estate agent only three days before the flood, hoping for a new start. Fate, it seemed, had other plans for them.

While the physical impacts of the floods slowly fade, the trauma remains. Pictured: Daizie Trew and her pet python Biscuit. Trew, along with an elderly neighbour, her family and their six pets were trapped in their roof for hours as flood waters rose around them Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

Fay Ditton and her dog Ellie sleep in a caravan and live out of the space under her house where she has set up a camp kitchen. Ditton feels compelled to stay in Lismore, having spent most of her life in the area Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

Across the northern rivers, thousands of homes were left uninhabitable and more than 13,000 people sought emergency accommodation from the NSW government. Most homeowners are still waiting to hear if they are eligible for a home buyback. Pictured: a home listed for sale in Lismore, six months after the floods Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

The 2022 Lismore Lantern Parade marking the winter solstice carried extra significance as the first large community event since the floods some four months earlier Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

The trauma of the event is compounded with an awareness that we have seen into a scary future. Most people assume another flood is inevitable and no one can be sure who will be safe when it comes.

Despite the strength and determination shown by so many during and after the floods, our weaknesses as a community have been exposed. Now they are impossible to ignore.

About 30,000 books were lost when flood waters surged through the bottom two floors of the Lismore city library. Pictured: librarian Lucy Kinsley searches with a torch for books in the library’s spared third floor Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

For many flood-hit residents the decision to move back into their homes was not a choice but a last resort. Leonie ‘Lee’ Schlieper and her grandson Hunter in her home on the day Schlieper and her partner moved back in. They had listed their home with a real estate agent only three days before the flood, hoping for a new start. Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi

More than a year after the flood many homes sit abandoned, their future uncertain. Many residents are nervous to rebuild their lives in the area Photograph: David Maurice Smith/Oculi