‘I’ll hang on as long as I can’: Stories of survival from flood-ravaged village
A village at Port Macquarie looks like a war zone two weeks after the NSW floods. Thanks to a mammoth rescue operation, 44 people escaped with their lives, but little else.
NSW
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For more than an hour, Mike Parkes balanced precariously on his balcony railing as flood waters rose to his chest height.
Inside the Riverside Village at Port Macquarie, he had one hand on the gutter of his roof and the other on his walking stick.
He hadn’t heard the evacuation order issued to the village’s residents the night before, and more than 400mm of rain had fallen across town.
The swollen Hastings River and a local creek overflowed into the village and sparked a panicked flurry of rescue requests.
After the third triple-0 call, at about 8am on March 20, Mr Parkes noticed two snakes swimming around him.
“I was getting pretty tired by this point,” the 61-year-old said from his temporary accommodation this week.
“I thought: ‘OK, I have seen a lot of things in the world, experienced a lot of things in my life. I will hang on as long as I can’.”
By the time an inflatable rescue boat came into view, the water was up to Mr Parkes’s chest.
“I thought I heard a man’s voice say: ‘Is that two snakes over there?’.” he said.
“I looked over and there was two blokes paddling up to me in a rubber ducky. I was so grateful in that moment.”
Mr Parkes’s harrowing story of survival is one of many to emerge out of the tight-knit community at Riverside Village.
Another resident clung onto his kitchen bench for hours waiting to be rescued, and others had to be piggy backed out of the flood water.
The quaint over-50s village was one of the hardest hit areas in the flood disaster last month, with 48 homes severely damaged by quickly rising water.
The village is still without power in some parts, and several residents who lost everything are uninsured.
They face massive costs to make their homes inhabitable again.
An army of volunteers has been on hand over the past two weeks clearing tonnes of debris and waterlogged possessions in scenes reminiscent of a war zone.
The State Emergency Service (SES) was bombarded with calls for help from residents, many elderly and vulnerable, stuck inside the village on the night of March 19 and into the following morning.
Flood rescue technician Scott Robinson said 44 people needed to be evacuated from the village.
“When we first got in there the water was rising quite quickly,” he said.
“The first gentleman we helped had a respirator and his family were concerned abut his medical welfare.
“As we went to get him, the water was getting up to the floor.”
That night, over a period of 12 hours, Mr Robinson and fellow flood rescue technician Alfred Portenschlager rescued more than 100 people across the Port Macquarie area.
Port Macquarie Hastings SES unit commander Michael Ward said there was a sense of complacency among people who had lived through floods in the region before.
“Part of the challenge is you live on a river, there are a lot of towns on the river and people know it floods,” he said.
“You then get this complacency and people go ‘I’ve lived through a flood before, I’ll be right’.
“This was a flood of record and it meant people, while they didn’t to evacuate when the order was given, the water kept coming up and they eventually needed rescuing.”
Mr Parkes managed to pack a sports bag and a backpack before he climbed onto his railing and waited to be rescued.
“I could hear things smashing and banging inside my house as the water rose,” he said.
His car was also ruined, and his insurer has informed him the flood was “an act of god” of which he wasn’t covered for.
“I am hoping (the house) is deemed structurally unsound and demolished because for as long as that house stands, one third of my pension goes towards the rent of the land every fortnight,” he said.
“To make the house liveable will be at least $60,000 from having it rewired and materials replaced. I just don’t have that kind of money.”
Mr Parkes, a former DJ who battled bowel cancer five years ago, has a medical condition that affects his legs.
He’d been receiving treatment at a wound clinic since 2016 but now fears the hours he spent standing in flood water has increased the risk of amputation.
“I run the risk of losing that right leg,” he said.
After he was rescued, Mr Parkes spent four nights at Panthers club, then a makeshift evacuation centre, before relocating to the Port Macquarie golf club and now a hotel.
Sharlene Fisher’s mother, Isla Baird, and two sisters live in separate homes in Riverside Village.
All three properties were extensively damaged and Mrs Baird is now staying with relatives near Coffs Harbour.
“They had just finished dinner and were told to evacuate,” Mrs Fisher said.
“Mum thought it was just for a night.”
Village resident Des Cremer, 71, is waiting on an assessment from his insurer after leaving his flooded home in his pyjamas.
He was rescued around the same time as Mr Parkes.
“I heard voices about 6 or 7am and I put my feet over the side of the bed and ‘splash’,” he said.
“I stood on a chair until the SES pulled me over the balcony.”
There was no requirement for residents living in villages and caravan parks on flood plains to have insurance, said Peter Luxford, who helps manage Riverside Village.
That was a result of regulation change in 2013.
“This is an outcome of that,” Mr Luxford said.
“The people who are given a choice don’t necessarily do it (take out flood insurance), and then something like this happens and they have to rely on the charity of other people to put it all back together.”
High premiums also meant insurance cover was often unaffordable, he added.
As the clean-up at the village continues, Mr Luxford said a majority of insurance companies had been good but there were a couple “throwing up a few hurdles” for residents.
A Go Fund Me page will be activated from Tuesday to help residents of Riverside Village get back on their feet.
The village has promised to match every donation up to $50,000.
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