Cyclone Debbie aftermath: Lismore floods tear heart out of city business zone
LISMORE business owners say they may never recover from the latest floods — the worst in 43 years — with some saying they might shut for good.
NSW
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DEVASTATED Lismore business owners say they may never recover from the latest floods — the worst in 43 years — with some saying they might shut for good.
With every single business in the CBD of Lismore submerged by up to 3.5m of water after the Wilsons River broke its levee, one by one the owners came out to assess the damage today.
As the mix of water, mud, sewage, rubbish, petrol and oil began to recede, they began the gruelling task of cleaning up their shops and restoring their livelihoods.
Police, meanwhile, have warned the evacuation order may not be lifted for some time because of the sheer scale of the damage.
The damage bill is expected to run into tens of millions and health authorities are warning Lismore residents of the hidden health risks in the water.
As hundreds of volunteers moved into the city centre to help with the dirty work of cleaning up today, Mayor Isaac Smith said he was encouraging business owners to take it one step at a time.
“We know our community will rally behind our local businesses,” Mr Smith said.
He said some businesses had lost everything.
Unable to afford the cost of flood insurance, some shop owners had no time to get into the business to salvage any goods before the water hit.
The force of the flood had smashed through doors and destroyed stock and fittings.
“Some of them are talking about not opening again. Two weeks without any income is a long time for a small business,” Mr Smith said.
“To be honest, it is like a war zone.
“I’m encouraging them to take it one step at a time. We have started on the clean up and then we will see what help there is.”
He said they were now hoping for federal and state help with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Gladys Berekijlian due to visit the city on Monday.
The council is moving to pick up the giant piles of rubbish which have taken over the main streets as people help businesses to mop up.
“Thank goodness for the volunteers,” Mr Smith said.
‘LOOTER’ ARRESTED
Police have already arrested one man for looting after he was allegedly caught stealing from flood-affected shops on Sunday morning.
The mayor warned: “These people will get what’s coming to them.”
Senior Constable Mark Anemaat was supervising one alleged looter and said he was disgusted by opportunist thieves.
The accused man will appear in court later this month.
The Rural Fire Service has set up a base camp nearby for the 350 emergency services workers who are now helping with the clean up.
While the damage assessment and clean up has begun for some residents, communities downstream remain on high alert as the torrent pushes southeast towards Ballina, Coraki, Woodburn, Cabbage Tree Island, and Wardell.
“We are going to see other areas that may need to be evacuated in the next few days but nothing to the extent we’ve seen in Lismore,” a State Emergency Services spokeswoman said,
FLOODS CLAIM FIVE LIVES
The deluge following ex-tropical cyclone Debbie has claimed at least two lives in NSW and a further three in Queensland.
Two women were found dead on Friday, including 64-year-old Jan Baihn whose Land Cruiser became stuck in flood waters while her and husband Bob were driving through a causeway that leads to their Hunter Valley home.
The body of 45-year-old Mark Austin was also found at a South Murwillumbah caravan park on Saturday afternoon.
Nelson Raebel, 77, became Queensland’s first flood-related casualty after police found his body a day after he had gone missing near Eagleby Rd, south of Brisbane.
Matthew Roser, 46, a father of three, also collapsed and died at his Murwillumbah home at 1.30am yesterday after waking to find water gushing into the house.
The toll could rise with more than 300 homes still inundated.
Water levels in Lismore peaked within a metre of the 1974 record of 12.2 metres on Friday after 500mm to 700mm of rain fell in just 30 hours, swamping the town’s $19 million levee, which was only finished in 2005.
John Rees and wife, Dianne, have run the 100-seat Blueys Cafe for 30 years. They holed up in the cafe’s upstairs storage room so they could be on site for the inevitable clean-up.
“We don’t go during floods,” Mr Rees, 73, said. “You need to be on site to hose the mud out, otherwise it sets like concrete.
“About a metre of water came into the shop and I reckon it’s $30,000 to $50,000 worth of damage.”
Like many businesses in the region, Mr Rees’s shop was uninsured because the costs were too high. Lismore is affectionately known to locals as “the wok” because of its shape, making it a natural flood zone.
“You can’t get insurance. Its price is prohibitive so we’ll just have to wear it,” Mr Rees said as he considered when to reopen the shop.
“We’ll try and open on Tuesday but not sure we’ll have any stock, or customers.”
A man known as Big Rob surveyed his takeaway business on Keen St from a boat. As of yesterday afternoon it was still 2m under water.
“I don’t have any stock left and can’t assess the damage, so I can’t see me being open again for a week or two,” said Mr Rob, 45.
Lismore Mayor Isaac Smith said the town had not seen this level of damage since 1974, when the water reached 12.V11m. He said many businesses never had time to clear out stock and machinery.
“Every single business in the CBD has one to three-and-a-half metres of water inside. We think there may be over $10 million in damage to roads and bridges alone,” he said.
FULL GALLERY OF LISMORE’S FLOOD DRAMAS
Meanwhile, police in southeast Queensland said they held serious concerns for four people missing in flood-affected areas.
With attention shifting to clean-up costs, Insurance Council of Australia spokesman Campbell Fuller said the industry had received 12,500 claims from Queensland and NSW, amounting to millions of dollars. However, that number is expected to rise.
“It will take weeks for people to lodge their claims and tally it, but it could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.
Workers started pumping water out of Lismore yesterday and council trucks began pushing mud and silt back as the water ebbed.
A Facebook group, Lismore Helping Hands After The Flood, set up yesterday had by day’s end close to 2000 members willing to pitch in.
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