NSW floods: Hawkesbury residents face flooding again
Already expecting the worst, the victims of the 2021 Hawkesbury floods have fearlessly faced down the rising waters, leaving nothing to chance.
NSW
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While the 250mm of rain forecast for the Hawkesbury area has not eventuated, the river level is continuing to rise.
Since 7.30am on Thursday it has risen higher and higher over the Windsor Bridge, but thankfully less than a handful of homes have so far been inundated by water.
Dan Devine spent the morning nervously watching the water level rise in his backyard and enter the separate laundry.
Just before 4pm the murky water was lapping at the back door to the place he has called home for 22 years, but he was thankful it had not hit the levels of the 2021 flood.
“It is not 15 metres, that’s for sure,” Mr Devine said.
“But we’re right on high tide now and it’s still rising, it’s come in a foot just since we started talking... so we’ll see.”
Incredibly, in comparison to last years flood Mr Devine remains largely unfazed by the threat posed in 2022.
Having emptied the home of all belongings overnight after hearing the predictions this year would be worse than last, they are much better prepared.
“We’re prepared, we’ve gone to this effort in anticipation,” Mr Devine said.
“We had a shipping container, we loaded it all in, everything’s gone.
“We are built for it too. Water is going to come in and we’re going to hose it down.”
This year, unlike last, sandbagging is a real possibility.
Pacing around the shallows at the back of his home, Mr Devine measures how many sandbags would be needed.
In the end he decides against it.
“I can’t be bothered,” he says with a wry smile.
North Richmond resident Tony Davey lost his home in last year’s floods.
Almost exactly 12 months on his family have again had to evacuate having not even got close to a full recovery.
“We’d just started to get to a normal and then it’s happened all over again, so we’ll do it all again,” he said.
“The (positive) only thing you can say is that the people that went through it last time knew what was coming.”
When asked about the current state of his home, Mr Davey kept it simple.
“It’s wet,” he said.
Local Macquarie MP Susan Templeman said many of the people she had spoken to were battling at the thought of going through it all again.
But she said the people of the Hawkesbury were “tough” and having got through it once would do so it again.
“I think people are feeling a mix of exhaustion, despair and always hopeful that it won’t end up being as bad as the predictions are,” Ms Templeman said.
“One man said to me … and he lost everything last time and he said ‘I feel like the universe is trying to break me’.
“But that was a momentary feeling and then the next second he said: ‘We’re tough, we’re going to survive this’.
“It’ll be an emotional ride for the Hawkesbury today.”
As residents began evacuating, SES crews once again turned the hill on nearby George St into a makeshift jetty for their rescue boats.
Almost exactly 12 months ago Dan Devine stood on the steps running down to the completely flooded bottom level of his two-storey home on North St at Windsor and told The Daily Telegraph he was “devastated”.
But from that experience he and neighbours like Ben Sullivan learnt a valuable lesson: It’s better to get it out early than to have to clean it up later.
Shipping containers arrived on the road early on Wednesday which Mr Devine and Mr Sullivan filled with their belongings.
Water entered the lowest parts of Mr Sullivan’s property on Tuesday.
But despite having only returned to normal life inside their home in the past few months and even with predictions the Hawkesbury River will rise 2m higher than 2021, the mood is noticeable different this year.
In the past 12 months Mr Sullivan installed a completely removable kitchen which was able to be unscrewed and packed into the shipping container, ensuring it won’t be damaged.
Also gone from the house are the electric system and air conditioning units, with early estimates this could cost them $50,000 less than last year – making Wednesdays evacuation somewhat easier.
“We kinda knew by about 7am or 8am yesterday that we were in trouble,” Mr Sullivan said.
“All the people around here could see all the stars were aligning again.
“We’ve been back in the house for three months, we were out of the house for two months but we didn’t finish getting back … it took ages.
“We put plans in place about if it happened again, what would we do? So when we came back we put everything into tubs and we stripped a lot of stuff out, and I knew the sequence.”
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