When the Macdonald River flooded and power was cut to the St Albans community, Carmel Schmidt took it upon herself to bake bread for her neighbours.
Ms Schmidt, a member of the local church ladies group, is off-grid and knew she had power when others would not.
After handing out some loaves at the church she was inspired to fire up 15 more loaves.
There is no mobile reception, internet reception is patchy, and the access roads are easily cut-off.
This is just normal life in the so-called "forgotten valley" just 90 kilometres as the crow flies from Sydney.
A small town of 161 people, St Albans is no stranger to disasters, having faced the wrath of the Gospers Mountain mega-blaze in 2019-20 and multiple floods in the past three years.
Macdonald Valley residents had barely finished cleaning up from a flood in March when the river rose again — this time higher than anyone can remember.
The Rural Fire Service headquarters was flooded out, skip bins were lifted into the river, and the water came waist-height into the local sandstone pub.
'Restores your faith in human nature'
The Settlers Arms Inn is surrounded by piles of garbage and debris pulled from the pub by Australian Defence Force personnel and RFS members.
Examining the damage, licensee Ian Burns-Woods was in a surprisingly cheery mood seeing the way the community had responded.
"It restores your faith in human nature and I've seen many sides of human nature being a publican," Mr Burns-Woods said.
When he had to leave the pub due to the rising waters he found temporary lodgings with a friend who lived on higher ground nearby.
"People here, because it's a small community, they don't they don't hold grudges for too long," Mr Burns-Woods said.
As the RFS began bringing in essential supplies to relieve the town, they noticed how tight-knit and organised the community were.
A church hall on higher ground became a command centre where members of the community could receive donated fuel, food, and clothing.
Blaxland Ridge Brigade captain Allen Barry said the community was more or less making their to-do lists and knew the people in the community who would need more assistance.
"A lot of the locals didn't want our help. Everyone we went to said 'listen, Joe Bloggs down the road needs it more than me'," Mr Barry said.
"You can tell that this community is really banded together."
Everybody does what they can
Cooking food, welfare checks via kayak, and offering generators were just some of the ways people helped each other during times like these.
"It's the kind of place where we've learned to be reliant on each other and develop a community spirit over generations," said Linda Bracken, the vice president of the Macdonald Valley Association.
Emily Streckfuss has lived in the valley for 42 years and works as an equine vet in the Hawkesbury.
When emergencies happen she has become the community's go-to for all animal-related issues.
Ms Streckfuss helped rescue an injured horse that became stuck in the floodwaters, which she was able to do being boated over by the State Emergency Services.
She has also helped out a neighbour whose house went underwater.
"We've had him around here for dinner a few times and helped him move all his furniture," Ms Streckfuss said.
Planning for the future
Locals say the most pressing issue is the lack of communications in the valley.
Without reliable internet access people are unable to check river levels online, which becomes a daunting task particularly in the dark.
The Macdonald Valley Association has organised ultra high frequency (UHF) radios for residents of the valley to help combat the lack of access to stable communications during disasters.
Funding had been granted to the association for the initiative.
But when the full funding had not arrived when the floods hit, members of the community took matters into their own hands.
Stephen Brown was one of the members driving the radios out to vulnerable people in the valley.
He said buying the radios from retail was an easy solution.
"We have very little coverage for mobiles. Our landlines continually fail," Mr Brown said.
Carmel Schmidt said it was organisation like this, as well as random acts of kindness, that makes St Albans worth staying for.
"When there's an emergency it's wonderful to see the community pulling together," she said.
