The mood is tense with panic and uncertainty as evacuation orders are issued, and then recalled. The rain stops for a few hours, and we start to comment that hopefully the prediction is just over-cautiousness.
But then, the rain starts again. It falls heavy and fast. It falls through the night, sheets of persistent, pounding rain. I lay awake, anxious, and I know I am not the only one. Across Lismore, Ballina, Mullumbimby, Kyogle, Woodburn, Wardell, Main Arm – I could go on – people who have just spent the past four weeks coming to terms with the aftermath of so much water inundating our homes and businesses and streets, are lying awake through the night.
We are perched on the brink of another major flood event, four weeks after the last. Only four weeks after what has been called by some a one-in-1000 year event, we are about to see another, and some predict it could even be worse. A two-in-four week event, then. And this comes a short five years after the 2017 flood, which was supposedly a one-in-100-year event.
The city of Lismore, and it’s surrounds, braces for more collective and individual trauma. And in the face of all this climate-related devastation and destruction, the government announces its 2022 federal budget, and, with it,
The past four weeks have been intense and exhausting. Yes, there has been heart-warming community spirit and ‘resilience’ (what choice do we have?), but it is a slim sliver of silver lining in comparison to the loss of resources, valuables, homes, and lives. It has taken the entire community – plus people coming in from afar with supplies, new bursts of energy, and unfatigued compassion – to work day-in and day-out on the clean-up and recovery.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the flood devastated region of Lismore in northern New South Wales on 9 March 2022. Source: AAP / AAP
The community has rescued humans and animals in crowd-funded helicopters. The community has pulled sodden mattresses, waterlogged white goods, swollen wooden furniture, and no-longer identifiable ‘rubbish’, from homes and other buildings. The community has waded through sewage-infused mud-water, and pressure-cleaned it off walls and floors. The community has breathed in mould while cleaning and clearing, and plasterboard while tearing down walls to expose the hardwood skeletons of houses - all that is left of many. The community has shown up for neighbours, friends, and strangers alike.
Some of the community have returned to live in houses that are condemned, that are full of mould and rot, sleeping on a blow up mattress on top of a table because they have nothing left, and nowhere to go. Some of the community lived in evacuation centres, some in tents, some in their cars. What does this second flood mean for them? What does [Treasurer] Josh Frydenberg’s budget mean for them? What does it mean for all of us?
Heavy rain in late March forced the evacuation of Lismore residents for the second time in four weeks. Source: AAP / JASON O'BRIEN/AAPIMAGE
These floods are occurring to a backdrop of our government continuing to subsidise fossil fuel companies from Canberra. Meanwhile, in Lismore, ‘The Civilian Boat Navy’, a rag-tag collection of locals with tinnies and slightly more sturdy vessels, is on standby to rescue other civilians because the 10.6 metre levee was overtopped this morning - for the second time in four weeks. And the rain continues to fall.
On March 30, the Minister for Emergency Management Bridget McKenzie said the government would commit $150 million per year for recovery efforts in disaster-affected communities over the next two years, under the Emergency Response Fund.
Mardi Wilson is a writer living in northern NSW. She has a PhD and writes for sociological journals.
