Cath Piltz: Journalist recounts her nine hour wait to be rescued from flooded Lismore home

Cath Piltz was stranded inside her house for nine hours as floodwater rose in Lismore. “The pace at which the floodwaters gushed into our house was terrifying,’’ she writes. But it was the bitter cold of the rapids she will long remember.

Thirsty, shivering and cold, I stood waist-high in floodwater, numb.

By this time I was standing on my front balcony on a chair – it was the only place I wouldn’t be engulfed in rapidly rising flood waters. I’d been there for about six hours.

Before my brother Jeremy and I made it to the balcony, the water had risen so fast in three hours it was above my head on the second-storey of our home.

The pace at which the floodwaters gushed into our house was terrifying, but the thing that will probably draw flashbacks long term is the bitter cold of the rapids.

The Northern Star journalist Cath Piltz had to be evacuated from her South Lismore home and has recently returned to find the record flood waters ruined everything in her house, including her camera equipment. Picture: Toby Zerna

We were raised in Lismore. We’ve seen floods come and go, so we thought we were prepared for waters to rise early Monday morning. But like so many in the town we know and love, nothing could have prepared us, or Lismore, for this. It was nine hours of agony as the floodwaters slowly rose.

We were unable to escape and had to hope that a Good Samaritan would come to our rescue.

Earlier, we had taken all our usual precautions around our raised Queenslander home.

We spent eight hours moving valuables from the bottom floor to the top.

As night fell on Sunday we moved our car and motorbike to higher ground at a nearby Bunnings and we stayed awake watching the flood updates until about 1.30am. The last update said the river was going to get to 12.1m, so it shouldn’t have been a problem, with our home standing at 12.47 metres.

Exhausted, we went to bed, thinking the water levels would come nowhere near us. As a precaution we set an alarm for 3.30am. It probably saved our lives.

The Northern Star journalist Cath Piltz had to be evacuated from her South Lismore home and has recently returned to find the record flood waters ruined everything in her house. Picture: Toby Zerna

Jeremy describes it best when he says it “felt like an unreal dream”.

My brother came rushing in and said the water was expected to rise to 14 metres. He walked out the front door and saw it coming down the street.

I checked out the front with the torch because the power was out and the water was already at our top step. One more step and water would be in the house.

I thought ‘this can’t be happening, they said 12m and the levee hasn’t broken, where’s all this water coming from?’.

Then, the scramble was on. We frantically tried to determine what that would mean for our house, lifting anything we could as high as we could.

We have lived in this home since 1988 and inherited it from our parents. Their ashes were inside when the flood hit. We moved those, along with other sentimental things like a1982 set of encyclopaedias and board games as high as we could – thankfully, we think they will be ok.

People trudge through flood water at the Ballina Street Bridge to meet a boat at the other end in South Lismore on February 28, 2022.

We have not been able to get into the room we stored our precious belongings in since returning on Thursday, but we have hope.

About 5.30am, the water was coming into our house through the side veranda and across the floor. And it showed no sign of stopping.

It was a black void inside the house with the only sounds being us splashing through the hall

lifting things onto cupboards with tiny torches clenched between our teeth, and the relentless

rain, pounding.

About three hours later the water was up to my waist, and I thought, ‘this could be it’.

We called triple-0 but there were thousands of others seeking help at the same time. We were in the middle of an unfolding disaster zone.

At first light I went out on the veranda and saw the streets completely transformed. Where there used to be the street corner and the neighbour’s front veranda, all I could see was water.

I screamed and screamed, waving my hands furiously trying to flag down anyone that could help.

Water fills Cath’s home in South Lismore on February 28, 2022.

Neighbours lower than us were getting rescued and boats went past us a few times - they were trying to see who was most at risk.

Some people climbed onto their roofs and punched out a hole to get out. At one point a boat stopped to get us but they had to go up the road where there were two little girls. Which, in the scheme of things, was more important.

Police had urged us to climb onto the roof but the thought of slipping into the raging flood waters was too terrifying - we just couldn’t do it.

Just before noon two men in a tinnie - from the block of flats where a 70-year-old man would later be discovered dead - were able to reach us and take us to safe ground at the Lady Help of Christians Catholic School.

There were benches and seats bolted down so we were able to perch there with a few other people. They were all snacking on Twisties and chocolates and little tubs of ice cream cups from a floating esky.

That was the first ferry point in our terrifying rescue.

Rescue crews drop people off at the Ballina Street Bridge in South Lismore on February 28, 2022.

We were told to wait for a bigger boat and the next stop was the south Lismore side of the Ballina Street Bridge.

The men pulled into a line of other boats where we jumped out into knee deep water and were instructed to cross to the other side where we could catch another boat.

We then undertook the terrifying ordeal of crossing the bridge, fighting a raging torrent of floodwater. But for me, the scariest thing was thinking about all the people who were still trapped, who weren’t saved and the families that would be left behind.

Knowing first-hand the fear of being trapped in a rising torrent, I couldn’t stop thinking how frightened they must be.

I was in massive denial - thinking ‘this can’t be happening’ and ‘just do what you’ve got to do’- but I was frightened for the people who couldn’t fend for themselves as well as us - I felt powerless that I couldn’t do anything to help them.

A cow floats in flood water at Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School in South Lismore on February 28, 2022.

We got to the other side of the bridge and then we got separated. Jeremy took another boat after me and I could not see him looking back over the two young men from Alstonville that had come down to help ferry people to safety.

On the other side I waited for my brother to cross. It seemed forever and I was shivering with my teeth chattering too. There was a lady taking names, addresses and phone numbers just up the hill a bit. I looked back over to see Jeremy ambling up the hill towards me. We gave the lady our details then were bussed to the Goonellabah Sports and Aquatic Centre.

We got some dry clothes, had a hot shower and just crashed on the basketball court. As we rummaged through the wreckage of our belongings on Thursday I was still grappling with a range of emotions; disbelief, grief, anger, pain, sorrow, sadness. I had a picture in my mind of what we would walk into and in parts it helped going through the 2017 flood, but this one – I picked up my first camera that Mum had bought me after Dad died, caked in sludge knowing it is irreplaceable stung me the most today. Yes they are just things, and life will go on, sometimes for some things, there are no words

Originally published as Cath Piltz: Journalist recounts her nine hour wait to be rescued from flooded Lismore home