I remember looking around that day and everyone was just so sad. I was lucky I got out when I did in the morning the only thing you could see of my house was the ridge capping. This time, I began feeling worried because I could see it was raining a lot but I didn’t realise how bad things were until a friend came around to get me. Lismore’s the kind of place where neighbours look out for each other and people take the time to sit down and have coffee together. “I’ve lived in the same house for 22 years and I’ve always felt safe. Long-time Lismore resident Andrew Parry, deaf from birth, lives alone and was rescued from his home by a friend. We feel like we’re only at the beginning of our rebuild journey.”
We’re working hard to get life on track but there’s still a long, tough road ahead of us. So far, we’ve put in temporary wall sheeting to create bedrooms and rebuilt our deck and stairs but building costs have doubled in the past 12 months, there’s a backlog in sourcing supplies and we’re trying to do everything ourselves on a small budget. One year on, we’re living in a caravan under our home as we work to rebuild. “When we returned to our home we were rarely alone. That’s something you’d never want to leave. When people ask ‘Why don’t you leave?’, I point to how special the community is here. Friends helped and so did strangers, whether it was cleaning up mud, dropping off essential supplies or popping by with sandwiches. Even when we returned to our home and began to clean up, we were rarely alone. A local family we didn’t know very well was kind enough to put us up for a couple of weeks and in town, community-led services such as Koori Kitchen and Sophia’s Kitchen kept everyone fed with home-cooked meals. The tinnie army was just one example of how the residents of Lismore and East Lismore came together in the aftermath of the floods.
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