Communities count costs in lives and livelihoods as storm clean-up continues

IT’S not just the Collaroy millionaires’ row damaged by the super storm. There are other communities doing it just as tough.

St Marks Anglican Church in Picton suffers severe water damage with numerous head stones snapped or toppled over.

THE FOCUS may be on a millionaires’ row of beachfront homes set to topple at Collaroy, but in other areas devastated by the weekend’s storms, whole communities are reeling.

Homes and businesses are devastated. Towns are mourning deaths of locals in floodwaters.

Schoolchildren are displaced. Volunteers are cleaning up what they can.

And many haven’t even begun to count the cost.

At semi-rural Picton in Sydney’s southwest, the CBD has been ravaged and Wollondilly Shire Council mayor Simon Landow estimates it will be at least a month before it is operating at anything close to normal.

SES volunteer Kate Vendrasco from Mt Druitt SES loads carries dog food which was rowed into isolated houses in Llandilo. Picture: News Corp

It’s estimated 65 per cent of Picton’s business — about 50 in total, have storm damage after a wave of water swept through Argyle Street — the town’s central business district — on Sunday.

“Right now, it’s just a clean up,” said Mr Landow, as he continued taking in the damage.

“Some shops haven’t been assessed yet, and we are just starting on the residential properties — which we think is upwards of 30 homes.”

Clean-up: The interior of the water-ravaged St Mark’s Anglican Church in Picton. Picture: News Cor.

Picton, Mr Landow said, “is like a funnel. We are at the bottom of a valley. The water cascaded in from everywhere and funnelled into Stonequarry Creek.”

Then it raged through Picton — leaving utter chaos in its wake.

Shipping containers swept down the creek. Shop walls ripped out. Shop windows shattered and fittings swept away. A house lifted from its foundations. The 160-year-old St Mark’s Anglican Church swamped.

Headstones dating back to the 1800s in the surrounding cemetery dislodged — ‘a caravan went through it’, said Mr Landow.

“How,” he asks, “are you going to repair a 160-year-old church?”

The local IGA supermarket has started from scratch, restocking every perishable item it had to throw out after losing power on Sunday, and starting its refit.

Heavy losses: The Picton IGA was left with a pile of spoiled stock — although some of it was washed down the street. Picture: News Corp

At the George IV Inn, one of Australia’s oldest pubs built in 1835, recent renovations have been wiped out.

Even if the 90 per cent of the stock they lost had survived, there’s not much chance of a beer for a couple of weeks.

The local St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School, had one metre of flood water pass through its classrooms and is closed until the end of the term.

The school has 380 students, frantically being placed at surrounding schools, and will be bussed to them from next Tuesday.

“The school being closed is a major blow — they will go to nearby Rosemeadow — probably a 50 minute bus ride,” said Mr Landow.

Closed until the end of term: The devastated St Anthony’s Catholic School in Picton will send its 380 students elsewhere until the end of term.

“We have to get it up and running — it’s a major contributor to the economy and community, and without school drop offs, businesses will be affected.”

It’s hoped the school — which has had its new hall and library as well is its classrooms and offices inundated, will be open in some form at the start of term 3 — July 18.

They can’t even begin to calculate the repair bill.

Other local schools — Picton High and Wallacia Public reopened today, but with roads still cut many students still can’t get there.

Tasmania’s turn: A surviving cow is rescued after being washed downstream when the Mersey River flooded near Devonport. Picture: Heath Holden/Getty Images

Elsewhere, in the storm’s path, the cost is being counted in lives.

Five people have died and at least three remain missing around the country in the wake of the storm.

At Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands, locals are mourning the death of 65-year-old Robert Pollard, who died in floodwaters after his car became stranded in Mittagong Creek.

At Leppington, in Sydney’s southwest, the body of another man was found after his ute was swept off a causeway in floodwaters.

A ute sits submerged in flood waters on Cawdor Rd near Camden in Sydney’s southwest. Picture: Toby Zerna

Police have also retrieved the body of a 37-year-old Kambah man was found in the Cotter River near Canberra.

And police are yet to identify the body of a woman pulled from water at Dover Heights, near Bondi at 3pm Tuesday.

Up to four people are still missing, with the search for a man swept into water at Bondi Beach on Monday continuing.

In Tasmania, where the storm smashed through on Monday, the devastation still unfolding.

The body of a Mary Kathlee Allford, 75, has been found at Latrobe in northern Tasmania — a day after her husband was rescued through the roof of their flooded home.

The rescue of a woman — one of two people trapped in rising waters near Evandale also in north Tasmania, has brought the number of people missing in that state to two.

And the search continues for an 81-year-old man swept away while feeding sheep in his backyard at Ouse.

More than 100 people have been rescued from flooded properties in Tasmania, and more than 100 properties were flooded.

Helicopter vision overhead of floods at Latrobe in Tasmania. Supplied by Tasmania Police

Originally published as Communities count costs in lives and livelihoods as storm clean-up continues