Sandie Clarke, Tessa Flemming, Doug Burt and Barbara Elliot tell their flood evacuation stories

Countless residents have been displaced by horror floods never before seen on the Northern Rivers. Read some their stories of shock, fear, courage and survival.

Across the Northern Rivers, countless residents have been left homeless and bunkered down in emergency accommodation,

Evacuation centres stretch from Richmond Valley to the Queensland border and are inundated with gruelling stories of heartbreak and perseverance.

Here are just some of them:

‘One in 500 year’ flood

Journalist Tessa Flemming found herself at the Lennox Head Cultural Centre evacuation centre after fleeing her Ballina home.

This is her story:

Myself, like most residents of West Ballina, evacuated early Tuesday.

At that time, no water was at our doors and the threat seemed minor.

Nonetheless, the call about 2.30am from our landlord woke us up and in minutes we tried to stuff our home into the top shelves.

Valuable belongings and important documents were packed into a bag and we headed to Cherry Street Sports Centre.

Hundreds of shell-shocked residents soon followed, with one Lismore mum telling me she had left her home with the clothes on her back only to face another horror evacuation call.

Another disabled elderly man sits with us for a while, needing people to talk to. If his neighbour hadn’t dropped picked him up, he wouldn’t have been able to leave his home of 20 odd years.

After the king tides hit, many thought the worst was over and return home.

We had only taken a breath when news of another “life-threatening” order- this time for all of Ballina and we headed to Lennox Head Cultural Centre.

On Tuesday night, we overheard the tears of a resident who refused to leave her dog alone as the evacuation centre can’t accept pets.

Families are left inconsolable seeing aerial TV footage of their house underwater.

Kids complain to their parents, asking why they can’t get home. Their mum has to tell them they can’t pass through the road and don’t want to stay in their cars.

“At least we have water and food here,” she said.

Many are confused how at how Ballina — a town that has always been relatively safe from flooding for years- finds itself in this situation.

Neighbours who have stayed warn us there is water creeping into some homes and garages.

We hope it’s not ours.

It is a hard thing to comprehend when, and what we, could be walking home to.

Saving fur-babies

After a helicopter flew over and an SES boat passed the roof of a South Lismore home in the early hours of Monday morning, Sandie Clarke thought she was done for.

Sandie Clarke saved her dogs Monty and Bairley from their Casino Street home after they were heard banging on the roof of their house

“I reconciled at that point when the boat went past us and further down the street, that we were going to die,” she said.

Ms Clarke and her husband had just made it to the roof of their home after swimming through flood waters engulfing their kitchen and bedroom.

A few hours before, she told SES she didn’t want to evacuate.

The 62-year-old had found herself, along with her husband and their two dogs Monty and Bairley, stuck inside the roof of their South Lismore home after their entire bottom floor was flooded.

“About 2am I saw the water was a few steps away from our front door, half an hour later it was level with the kitchen bench,” she said.

The ferociousness and pace of the floods startled her but she made the decision to stay and not evacuate after an experience during the 2017 floods.

Ms Clarke escaped on a boat through Ballina Road. Picture: Stuart Cumming

In 2017 she was told their dogs would not be allowed into the evacuation centre, so she made the choice on Sunday night that she would rather protect her pets who she considers her children.

“I didn’t want to leave them behind,” she said from the Goonellabah Aquatic and Sports Centre, which has turned into a mass evacuation centre.

“They are my babies, but we didn’t think the water would rise so far and so fast.”

“It was like fate”

Before Ms Clarke took to the attic of her Casino St home in the early hours of Monday morning, she opened up her bedroom window.

She didn’t know why she did it at the time but it was an act that saved the live of her family, which she described as “like fate”.

Ms Clarke and her husband were still stuck in their attic but cracked a window to escape by jumping onto a table on their back deck.

A boat or helicopter couldn’t save them from there and they were told to make the trip to the front of the house, but the only way to get there was to swim.

Goonellabah Aquatic and Sports Centre became a makeshift evacuation centre for Lismore residents

“I realised, ‘oh my God, the water is past my neck inside the bottom floor of the house, we have to take the dogs and swim to the front’,” she said.

“I took Bairley, who is about 40 kilos, and Monty and we ducked under and swam through the flood water into the kitchen, got some breath and then ducked under again and reached the bedroom window – the window I opened for some reason.”

“We were sitting there for a while before a man in a jetski helped us onto the roof, I nearly lost Monty, she got caught in a current but she was saved by the man on the jetski.”

It wasn’t long before the couple and their dogs were rescued alongside another family, making their way to Goonellabah Aquatic and Sports Centre which was set up as an evacuation site.

Ms Clarke didn’t evacuate because she wanted to hold onto her dogs and she thanks her lucky stars that she and her husband still are.

Fijian love

Doug Burt and Barbara Elliot had just been through hell, climbing onto the railing of their veranda to escape the raging floodwaters on Phyllis St, South Lismore.

Doug, 69 and Barbara, 72, never thought the water would come up so high but as they sat in the rescue boat shivering cold, the first thing they remember seeing was a big smiling face.

The people that greeted them on Ballina Rd was a group of Fijian abattoir workers.

“I saw them they were beaming, they were so kind,” Mrs Elliot said.

“I was all over the place I could barely move my legs, so one of the lovely men carried me to the bus to take us to Goonellabah.”

Mr Burt described them as “lifesavers” and for a brief moment in the midst of complete tragedy he was able to smile and laugh.

The clean-up however will be a sombre affair for Mr Burt and Mrs Elliot as the couple are certain that they’ve lost everything.

“Nobody on our street thought we would get flooded so badly, I can’t believe what has happened,” Mr Burt said.

Caravan carnage

All Wayne Clifford and Sharon Mcquilty have left are the clothes that were donated to them, a phone charger and some smokes.

the couple sit at the Goonellabah evacuation hub at the Aquatic centre and struggle to recount how their entire life had been destroyed.

At 4am on Monday, Mr Clifford, 63, thought he was going to be washed away by the current at Road Runners Caravan Park.

The park was only a few hundred metres from the ferocious Wilson river and the water was up to his chest by the time he made the perilous journey up the hill of the caravan park to safety.

“I’ve seen some things in my life mate, that was probably the scariest,” he said.

Mr Clifford joined a big burly man to help him up the hill where the water hadn’t reached, but the force of the current was seconds away from pulling him into the grasp of the flood.

Sharon and Wayne’s entire life was washed away in their caravan at Road Runners caravan park

“If I didn’t have that big man to lean on I would’ve been taken.”

His wife Mrs Mcquilty exited their caravan and did the same but it was 12 hours before they would get to safety.

A man called Nathan arrived on his boat to whisk them away from the rising flood waters and as they sailed away in the rain, Mr Clifford and Mrs Mcquilty looked back and saw his 22-year old Toyota Camry bobbing up and down against the fence of the caravan park.

“The only thing we can do now is laugh, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry,” Mrs Mcquilty said.