Trucks flipped, brick walls collapse: South Lismore streets resemble war zone as clean-up begins

Cars have been flipped and a house has almost collapsed as the South Lismore community begins a massive clean-up. At the local bowls club, members fight back tears.

Dave Knight is fighting back tears as he surveys the destruction of the South Lismore Bowls Club.

Lismore’s biggest flooding has turned the area upside down.

There are cars flipped over and stacked on top of each other in the parking lot and two inches of mud cakes the entire inside floorboards.

Stacks of chairs and rubbish piles two metres high on the grass while the bowling green is covered in dirt.

“This place looks like a third world country,” he said.

“It’s like Ukraine with the buildings still standing.”

David Knight is distraught after his beloved South Lismore Bowls Club was destroyed in the floods Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

In reality, some the buildings on Wilson Street and the surrounding area will have to be brought down.

Cars that were left in the South Lismore Bowls Club carpark were flipped on top of each other Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

Mr Knight – who was chair of the club for three years – has tears rolling down his face, thanking the members of the community who have come to help.

The scale of the destruction and power of the flood water shows a removalist truck turned over on its side and entire houses torn apart.

A removalist truck was turned over on Crown Street on Friday Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

The hospitality and retail businesses on Union Street are covered in debris with most people cleaning up saying they are lucky to still be alive.

Each face either resembles a battle-hardened determination to recover or souls that are beaten down, wondering if they can take it anymore.

A Casino Street home on the verge of collapse on Friday as South Lismore. Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

On Casino Street, 83 year-old Graham Duff was hoisted onto a boat on Monday and taken to safety at Tony Carini’s house outside of Lismore.

His son Darren, 53, waited hours more to be rescued from his home alongside his friend Tony Woods.

Tony Carini, Graham Duff and Darren Duff escaped their Casino Street Home on Monday Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

Darren works at Lismore’s PFD food services while living at the Casino Street house since he was a baby.

He has only spent a few years living outside of Lismore to pick up work in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Five Dock.

Lismore is a part of his soul but the harrowing moment he had to escape the rising torrent on Monday afternoon will live with him forever.

“We were chest high in water and I was afraid of hypothermia,” he said.

“After we got out of the boat, the bus ride had the bloody aircon on not the heater, I said ‘my god I’m gonna freeze to death!”

Darren was taken to GSAC evacuation centre in Goonellabah where a hot shower, a sausage sandwich and new clothes felt like Christmas morning.

The garage and first floor of Graham and Darren Duff’s home was inundated on Monday Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

He later learned that to get to the police boat waiting outside the veranda of his home, 83-year old Graham barged with all his might passed the door to get outside with the water passed his waist.

“He’s got a lot of fight, he’s a trooper,” Tony Carini said.

Darren had home and contents insurance and is waiting nervously to see if his claim pulls through, but not everyone had as much luck.

Jill Mitchell didn’t have any flood insurance for her home and is now in tears wondering what is next for her.

She despairs at the lack of funding for flood-prone Lismore.

Jill Mitchell sits with a young dog in the Goonellabah Evacuation Centre after devastating floods destroyed her South Lismore home Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

Lismore which is one of the most flood-prone areas in Australia, was not a priority area for the Preparing Australian Communities Program in November last year.

The National Resilience and Recovery Agency (NRRA) said grants would be given to organisations that “asses and plan for disaster risk, increase capacity and raise awareness of disaster risk, or that deliver resilient infrastructure.”

Jill Mitchell's only got out of her Crown Street home with her dog Molly and the clothes on her back Picture: Nicholas Rupolo

Mrs Mitchell believes she will be on the verge of desperation in her later years.

“I’ve paid my taxes all my life and I feel I’m getting to the point of desperation,” she said.

“If Scott Morrison was here I don’t think I could speak to him.

“I can’t see him helping I don’t think he’s got it in his heart.”