“ I came home and moved the chickens upstairs. After the 2017 flood I got a little demountable cage just for that purpose. I didn’t want to risk them flying off the deck. I moved my lawn mower and anything valuable upstairs, chained up my bins and did everything I didn’t do in the 2017 floods. I was soaked to the bone so had a shower and I felt prepared. The SES knocked on the door at 6pm and they predicted 10.4m metres so I felt safe as my front gate downstairs is 10.8m. It doesn’t come into my yard usually.
The rain didn’t stop, intense rain like I’ve never seen and a friend said I could go stay at hers up at Lismore Heights. She said I could bring Sadie but she’s a difficult dog. She hates other dogs. Even though my friend didn’t have a dog at the time. She’ll tell you her story for Dogs of Lismore but don’t be fooled by this sweetness and light. She’s a demon when she wants to be. My friend offered to come and get me but I said no because she has a little 3 year old and I didn’t want her to risk driving in those conditions.
I’d also had a dream the week before that East Lismore was under water and the car I was in started to sink. I had this fear of people driving through water. I told my friend I’d called the SES to pick me up which I had. I rang them every half hour as soon as they said evacuate. They said they were coming but they didn’t. I really started to panic. I kept telling them they would get cut off but they kept saying I was on the list and they were coming to get me. They said, Is your life in danger? I said, Not yet but it’s going to be if you don’t come for me.
At 2.30 am they told me they couldn’t get me. I still never thought it would come in upstairs. My floor is 12.75m and they had predicted so much under that level. I knew it was going to be stressful but still felt like it would be ok. I heard the sound of the levee top over and saw the water coming over my path which is where it hits when the levee goes. The sound and smell of flood is horrifying. I still felt like I’d be ok so I decided to have a rest and I fell asleep. At 5am my brother texted to see if I was ok. I opened the door and the water was up to my top step. In just 2 hours it had risen so fast. I had no flood plan ready other than to put all my kitchen on stainless steel racks. That was me preparing for the worst but this was beyond anything I was prepared for.
I packed my contact lens and important things into my backpack. I lost power and the house started to fill up with water. There was no light but I remember the blackness coming up through the plug hole. There was a really strong smell of petrol, I was blind and it was dark but I had to prioritise so I went and opened the chickens cage on the deck and there was one floating. I pulled her out. I was trying to pull the others out but I couldn’t see and I didn’t have anywhere to put them that was safe.
Sadie was glued to me the whole time. I tried to put her up on the lounge. I could hear her saying…For years you’ve told me I’m not allowed on the lounge and now you decide you want me on it. Sadie has very poor flood instincts it seems. She didn’t want to climb up, her instinct was to bunker down. She followed me around as the house was filling up. I got the highest bench I could find. I thought of getting into my manhole but even if I could get there, I was scared of being stuck in my roof. I had the exact same script play out as my dream. It was happening so much quicker than I was prepared for. Is this how I die? My answer to myself was No! This is not how you die.
The rain was so heavy I couldn’t hear if a boat came so we had to go to the front verandah. I dragged out the bench and tried to get Sadie up on it but I couldn’t. She would just keep her back legs on the chair and her front legs on the bench. It was rising fast and I knew I was going to have to get on the roof. I could just see the colour of the verandah railing, I found the ladder and I had to make a plan. I knew once the water was over the railing I couldn’t see anything. Sadie jumped off the bench and tried to swim back inside where she thought it was safe. Here was my 35 kg wet panicking dog clawing at the door. I put her against the ladder and I stood behind her holding her to the ladder and the image of her face against mine will plague me for the rest of my life. She was so scared, so very scared.
The water had risen, I got her back on to the bench and my dad rang. I said I can’t talk, I’m getting on the roof so at least now someone knew. There was no way I could get Sadie up over my head balancing on a ladder and she would have panicked and washed away. I could hear boats in the distance and I could just imagine thousands of people dying. I just got myself onto my roof which was very steep and very slippery. Sadie was still on the bench.
I just read the other day that the prediction of reaching 14.4metres was announced at 8am on the morning of the worst flood ever. Seriously, that was an hour after I was on the roof. Thanks! We know how big it is. The moment I got on the roof was the hardest time of my whole life. I know with ADHD, we are the masters of disasters. We are the ones you want on your side in the apocalypse. I took a lantern up on the roof to signal boats. Sadie was directly underneath the awning where I was sitting and I didn’t talk to her for fear that she would swim out to get to me. It was horrible and I didn’t say goodbye to her and I knew there was a risk I wouldn’t see her again but I had no choice. You couldn’t see and you couldn’t yell with the noise of the rain. When the rain backed off a bit I could hear cries coming from the houses. There were people crying out for help and there was nothing I could do.
I heard something around the back of my house so I crawled around and all I could see, even being blind, was brown water. I saw people around the roof and there was group of people and dogs sitting on my roof which was much flatter than the steep part I’d been clutching to. I remember looking out and there was brown then grey, Lismore was gone. I remember thinking, everything is gone.
There was a man in a red canoe with a European accent. I still don’t know who he is and he was pulling people out of their houses and dropping them up on the railway tracks but then the tracks started to go under so he ferried them up onto my roof. I asked him to check on Sadie for me and he said I can’t see her. She’s a dark dog and she doesn’t bark but he said I can’t see her. He went off to save someone else and when he returned I crawled around to show him exactly where she would be. He said, She’s not there, she’s gone.
They handed me the little dog Ollie from next door because he kept jumping into the water and Ollie knew me. Ollie and Sadie hated each other. They loved to hate each other so here I was holding this little old saturated dog. I was numb.
This canoe man saved so many people and then he took us all to meet the boats. As I was diving head first into the boat with Ollie in my arms I realised that I had saved Sadie’s arch nemesis and I couldn’t save her. That was the first wave of guilt and grief. From that point on I was consumed with the fact I’d lost Sadie. They took us up to the hall and I will never underestimate a towel again. I got some dry socks and clothes. All I could say was, I lost my dog and people are looking at me with Ollie in my arms thinking you’ve got your dog, it’s on your lap. This is not my dog. People were coming to billet us and one couple were looking for a single person with a dog so they took me and Ollie. They were fantastic. I kept contacting Ollie’s owner to let her know he was safe. Unfortunately when Ollie went back he wandered off. He was also blind and because he wasn’t at home he wandered off and they lost him.
I couldn’t get the image of Sadie’s fear out of my mind. A couple of days later I got a phone call from my daughter in Melbourne. She was sobbing and she said, Mum they found Sadie. She’d seen footage on social media. I said, there is no way it’s her knowing she’s not a great swimmer. I was 100% sure she was gone in my head. Finally she sent me a photo and it was her.
These guys had found her in the pear tree in the yard. I went to get her and she couldn’t walk. When they found her the water was still receding. The guys said they heard a noise which was quite unearthly screaming out. It sends shivers up my spine because I’ve never heard her make any noise other than a bark. He imitated the noise. They thought it was a person screaming for help but it was Sadie. She was hanging upside down with her back legs in the tree. As the water was receding she had her paw on the lower brach and holding her head up out of the water. She was also impaled in her thigh which we found out much later.
The boys posted the Tic Toc of her being saved and it went crazy (see link in comments). She had Bondi Vet here and Dr Katrina. They sent her a new bed and lots of toys. The people where we were staying took us in and no vets were open. Eventually we got her to a vet and Sadie can tell you the rest of the story when you put her on Dogs of Lismore.
I lost absolutely everything but once I got Sadie back I had this kind of tenacious optimism and the trajectory changed. I’d gone from that moment on my roof in the dark where everything in my life conceptually and physically was gone but now I had Sadie back. I thought, Ok well I’ve still got all the stuff above the shop so maybe I can set up a soup kitchen and feed people as we are cleaning up town. That lasted about a minute until I remembered the ’74 level flood in the Embassy Arcade and I calculated how much higher this one was and I realised I’d lost all of my equipment too. No flood insurance for anything as it was too expensive. Thank goodness for FB Marketplace.
I’m still hoping I can get back to the shop and I don’t know what’s happening with my house. I don’t where I’m going to be, I may have to leave town. I’ve gone back to just taking orders for cakes which has been enough to keep me going. I couldn’t make any decisions about my business or my life till I find out what the Resilient Land Program are doing. I can’t work elsewhere because of my vision and I can’t drive. We keep getting strung along. I found out recently with the buybacks that we only have 3 months to decide and then a years settlement. That hasn’t been what they’ve been saying. I pointed out to my case manager that they haven’t even announced the Resilient Land program yet alone come up with a system, yet alone have it ready to go. How are we meant to move our houses to land that doesn’t exist? That’s thrown me in a big spin. I don’t know what to do. I can’t be homeless and how can I keep my home if I have to be out within a year and there’s nowhere to take it. They keep saying it but they set it up so it’s not possible. It’s just f#@k off money. I can’t afford to be in limbo, being homeless with a dog, no vision, no car, no job. This is terrifying for me. I’ve worked really hard to be independent and when I can’t be I’m terrified.
When David Witherdin the Chief Executive of the NRRC said…People moving back into their house is like some kind of collective amnesia. I though right, you understand exactly zero about our housing issues. It horrifies me. They have no idea because they haven’t lived through it and they haven’t spoken to us, the community who are living through it. You can’t set up a program that’s technically impossible for anyone to use.
The last couple of days I’ve felt really panicked. I almost cancelled this interview with you again as I’m feeling sick because I don’t know what to do. I’d rather stay in Lismore because I love it here and this is my home but I don’t know how that could be possible. I look all around the country at properties on line but I just want to be here in my house, out of flood.”
Footnote – ‘Tooka was my eldest chicken, and she had already survived ’17 flood. After it seemed Sadie was going to be okay, my grief went to losing her. I was sad for all my chooks but this one really got me. When I first returned to my house when the waters had finally receded, I went in late afternoon to take photos and footage. I couldn’t see anything but I could see a bit through the phone and could spend the evening looking at them so I would know what I was walking into the next day. A boy from next door came with me to make sure I was okay navigating it all. As I was taking photos he said “Oh, there’s a chicken!” I grimaced and told him I would deal with them tomorrow and then I realised what he meant and said, What! you mean alive? I clambered around, hoping against hope that it would be my Tookah. And it was! Even though the temporary cage was foreign to her, and was completely covered in a pile of debris, she had gone back to where I had left her to wait for me. It’s astounding how chickens will go back to their own roost. Turns out there were two other survivors who did just that but Tookah went back to where I had left her. When I got back that night and looked at the photos I saw I had taken a photo of her without realising. Sadly she just passed away recently. Sadie found her under the step. I will miss our little chats.’
If you need a beautiful cake Naomi is still baking.
Look up ‘Season & Whim’ on FB. Won’t let me post link for some reason.
