Lismore, Wide Bay and Ballina floods: Celebrating everyday heroes as recovery continues
Residents of the worst-hit flood regions in NSW and Queensland have banded together as the clean-up continues. Now they’ve been given a financial boost by News Corp. We share their amazing stories.
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Selfless heroes — who themselves faced the devastation of the NSW and Queensland floods in their own homes and businesses — have used people power and creativity to help their communities recover.
Lismore was hit by the region’s worst flood on record, with five people dying in the tragic events in February and March.
In the Gympie, Mary Valley and broader Wide Bay region, six lives were lost in January and February – all bar one were attempting to drive across flooded crossings.
In Northern NSW, flooding inundated some areas for more than a week, affecting an estimated half a million people and costing $5.134 billion in losses, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.
In Queensland the most recent damage bill the Gympie region — where the state was worst hit — sits at more than $100 million.
While communities try to rebuild, it has been up to the dedicated work of many volunteers to help the recovery, rolling out and staffing everything from food and therapy to school programs that help kids heal with nature.
When the floods hit Northern Rivers earlier this year, News Corporation Australia announced a $1 million commitment to hard hit communities.
Our News In The Community program has been working with St Vincent de Paul and other charity groups on the ground to allocate the funds.
As part of that commitment, News Corp has donated a total of $200,000 to nine flood relief community initiatives and one flood-affected individual in the worst-hit regions.
Executive Chairman, News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller said: “News Corp is passionate about its ongoing support for the flood-ravaged regions of NSW and Queensland.
“Guided by the advice of our journalists living and working in these communities, we believe these initiatives will provide practical assistance in helping their towns, businesses and many families rebuild and recover. Undoubtedly, there will be more difficult challenges ahead but our commitment to be there for these communities in tough times remains resolute.”
News Corp Australia’s Community Ambassador, Penny Fowler, said: “Our journalists in northern NSW and Queensland know first hand the devastation and lasting terrible toll the floods have caused for their communities.
“As a company we are proud that from day one they have been determined to support community projects run by locals for locals that will make a real difference to helping people get back on their feet again.
“Their feedback has been crucial to identifying those most in need and programs – often run by unsung local heroes – that can have such a positive impact in their lives.”
The funds will go to everyday heroes helping out in their community, from schools in need of repair, to programs to boost resilience and mental health support alongside other worthy causes.
Sports clubs in Queensland’s north suffered immense damage from the devastating 2022 floods, with Gympie Netball drowning in a repair and rebuild bill of $500,000.
The region’s 500 netball players are now divided between courts at two schools, Gympie State High School and Victory College, which are accommodating the competition while it has no home.
As part of the ongoing recovery, News Corporation Australia (NCA) has contributed $20,000 to the repairs.
Meanwhile, elderly Gympie couple Tim and Shirley Buckles were wiped out by the February 2022 floods. The water submerged their family home and destroyed all of their possessions.
This included an electric wheelchair Mr Buckles needed to remain mobile.
The disaster forced him not only into unfamiliar emergency accommodation in another city, but reliant on a chair built for a teenager.
With the assistance of a $5000 donation from NCA he has been able to purchase a replacement wheelchair.
In Murwillumbah, NSW, It Takes A Town (ITAT), founded by Carmen Stewart, supports and connects individuals and initiatives through community projects.
Ms Stewart said at a time when anxiety and depression were at an all-time high, people needed skills to check-in on others – her Deep Listeners project offers suicide prevention training to make this easier for the community.
Local resident, Ursula Wharton, who lost her son to suicide four years ago and then most of the family’s belongings in the flood, will run a Deep Listeners workshop to train others and establish a Recovery Conversations cafe for residents to debrief and be listened to compassionately.
“Deep Listeners is about us as a community looking out for each other,” she said. “There’s no fixing anything, no judgment, it’s just listening. We don’t want to be pitied because we were flooded, we want to be listened to – it helps us feel empowered.
“We understand it because we are in it. Even with insurance, there is no magic. It will take about two years to even start to recover.”
Also being helped by NCA’s $35,000 flood relief donation is the town’s Reignite project run by Hub 2484 (formerly the town’s flood volunteer hub) which ITAT also supports.
Reignite, co-ordinated by Diane Bauer, is about lifting the spirits of the community by reigniting activities that brought joy to people before the flood, from art and craft to fishing, gardening or dolls and Lego for kids.
ITAT is also providing flood-impacted households with Why Leave Town gift cards. Ms Stewart said these cards ensure recipients purchase items lost to the floods at local shops.
A program helping traumatised children reconnect with nature will benefit from a $20,000 boost, allowing a lower Richmond River school to create raised garden beds and greenhouses to facilitate eco-focused workshops.
Cate McQuillen, The producer behind the series Dirtgirlworld and Get Grubby TV, has built the program REgener8.
She said it uses nature to help kids “reconnect and normalise that relationship with nature” after disaster, with programs focusing on supporting school-aged children’s wellbeing.
“Growing takes time and growing takes care – as does healing,” Ms McQuillen said.
“And if you can see something springing and growing and flourishing, it’s like living hope.
“You don’t plant trees if you don’t believe in a future.”
In another act of community goodwill, when Wardell resident Joel Orchard watched on as people evacuated outside his house, he knew he had to help the small town and surrounding communities recover.
Wardell Core and its two dozen volunteers provide everything from clothes and food to mental health support daily to Ballina Shire residents affected by the recent flooding disaster.
Mr Orchard estimates more than 20,000 people were helped by the volunteer group.
“People who wouldn’t have even considered themselves in a flood-prone area all of a sudden were cut off or had to get flown out by helicopter,” he said.
“That first month was hell for leather, (we were providing) really critical support, having meals available and hot food, produce and pantry goods.
“It was just go, go, go and I think we worked for 60 days straight before we took a day off.”
And there is still work to be done, made easier with the support of a $20,000 boost as part of NCA’s commitment to help with the rebuild.
In Ballina Shire, Cabbage Tree Island Public School will benefit from $20,000.
It was one of countless properties submerged in the floods, leaving the library and several rooms unsalvageable.
The school works tirelessly in the small indigenous community to provide connection, and throughout the floods, continued to feed and provide donations to students and their families.
Principal Dyonne Anderson said floodwaters came halfway up the lower windows, rendering the library, year 3-6 bathrooms, community rooms and the preschool unsalvageable.
Every other schoolroom was inundated in some way.
She said the donation would help the school remain a vital part of the community.
“When you have nothing it’s so important for there to be some level of normality for our kids,” she said.
“It hasn’t just been about our school, we can’t move forward with just our students, we have to have our community come along with us.”
Many flood-impacted homeowners in Lismore were left in the cold this winter after they removed their internal wall panelling due to black mould.
With families forced to live in their homes without anything to protect them from the cold, the Lismore program Two Rooms was launched by Naomi Shine to help fill that gap by insulating two rooms with donated gyprock.
A $20,000 donation from NCA means the organisation can continue to help people like single mother-of-three Courtney O’Brien.
She said the support had made a world of difference as her family now has a safe, warm space to sleep as the recovery continues.
“The kids are so resilient – I think they are doing OK but it’s a bigger deal for me in being able to provide a home,” she said.
The mental health of flood-hit residents of northern NSW was given a real test when the region was hit by two floods in six weeks.
But Ballina psychologist Gina McMaster stepped up, launching Healing and Resilience Australia (HARA) to help bring mental health support to flood victims, all while dealing with her own office being hit by the devastating floods.
The office, which Ms McMaster shares with other psychologists, was hit by 20cm of floodwater from the nearby Richmond River back in February 2022.
A donation of $20,000 will support Ms McMaster, who said the “confronting and shocking” devastation was something she had never seen during her time in Ballina.
“I could of gone along like I did before and just saw the 16 people a week I used to see but given the number of people we need to help, it’s not going to cut it,” she said.
“If you can help people earlier on, they’re less likely to develop more severe mental health problems.”
Students at Mullumbimby High School are struggling to rebuild their academic careers after buildings, including the staffroom and library, were ruined in the floods.
Principal Greg Armstrong said among the many buildings damaged and remain padlocked and unusable, the school hall was the worst.
But with the help of a donation, the school can start to refurbish its hall and assist ancillary services such as the Parent’s and Citizen’s Association to help students in need.
The school is also in the process of remediation and betterment which will assist in the provision of a new floor, stage, lighting and basketball rings in the school hall.
“We do have some really exciting things ahead of us to have a much brighter future,” Mr Armstrong said.
“We can’t believe News Corp has so generously donated $20,000 to us.
“We are so grateful.”
Meanwhile, some believe a book is the best way to escape in times of difficulty.
So there was heartbreak across the community when the Richmond-Tweed Library
The mobile library was also destroyed and librarians have been using a station wagon to continue the small and limited collection after the floods.
However, an outpouring of donations including $20,000 from NCA, has seen the Richmond-Tweed Library score a new mobile library truck that has hit the road.
Trisha Bryant, a library volunteer from Nimbin, said it would change lives.
“People keep telling us how incredibly important it is to have a read,” Ms Bryant said.
However, an outpouring of support from donations, including $20,000 from NCA, has seen the Richmond-Tweed Library score a new mobile library truck that has hit the road.
Trisha Bryant, a library volunteer from Nimbin, said it would change lives.
“People keep telling us how incredibly important it is to have a read,” Ms Bryant said.
“Especially for those who have been isolated in the floods or where the roads have been damaged and they can’t get into town.”
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