NSW floods: School to reopen as ‘ghost town’ Lismore attempts to return to normal
Flood-ravaged Lismore has become a ghost town two weeks after the east coast “rain bomb” slammed into the city wreaking devastation.
NSW
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There’s an acrid smell lingering in Lismore now the sun has come out. A bit like putrid, rotting fruit.
But no one lives there anymore.
Compact rows of mud-strewn hollow weatherboard frames that were once homes lie testimony to life that was in the NSW Northern Rivers town inhabited by 30,000 people.
Two weeks after the east coast “rain bomb” slammed the city and its surrounds, wreaking devastation and claiming 22 lives across NSW and southeast Queensland, it has become a virtual ghost town.
A semblance of normality will return for some children in the Lismore Valley Shire on Monday when three of the 22 primary and secondary schools re-open to pupils.
Richmond River High’s 700 children will study alongside the 500 Lismore High students adhering to a new rotating classroom timetable drafted to enable students to be taught by their own teachers.
The school was completely submerged under floodwater and, while not condemned, it is estimated it will take the best part of the year to rebuild.
Years 11 and 12 will be drafted in next week under regular supervision. At the start of next term a demountable building will house the schoolchildren and help accommodate the juniors.
Years 11 and 12 will be drafted in next week under regular supervision. At the start of next term a demountable building will house the schoolchildren and help accommodate the juniors.
“I’m excited to go back because I’ll be back with my friends and I’ll see my mates from when I was at Lismore primary, it’ll be crowded but it’ll be more fun and I’m looking forward to getting my grades up,” said year 8 Richmond Rivers student Michaela Butcher, 14, from Goonellabah, outside Lismore.
“The last time I saw everyone at school was last Thursday at 2.30pm when the teachers told us, ‘the floodwaters are rising, quickly go home,’” she said.
“We walked knee high over Fawcett Bridge, I joked with friends we should go for a swim but no one thought the floods would get so high or dangerous.”
Richmond Rivers Principal Luke Woodward says teachers impacted by the floods worked around the clock to devise new timetable for students.
“We’re very excited about seeing the children [on Monday], they’re a very tough, resilient bunch, I see them more than my children and we’re keen to get them back on track. Life must carry on,” he said.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell agreed a “tough” road lay ahead for flooded schools.
“Recovery will be a different journey for each school and student and we will be supporting each of them on their road to recovery,” she said.
“The Department of Education and School Infrastructure NSW are working so sure that students have the option to return to face-to-face learning as soon as possible.”
Indeed life is continuing in Lismore; in shelters, in tents and motor homes parked in caravan parks, in disused cinemas, and school grounds.
Some, the brave, have returned to their decimated homes while the SES and ADF continue to sweep away the debris. Even the volunteers that flew in from the Gold Coast and Queensland with no link to the town except for a heavy heart for those who suffered the historical floods have gone.
“We came back to a house where an old lady who was about 90 had been evacuated ahead of the worst of the floods, she had returned with her son who had been taking care of her, and was standing in the kitchen polishing her china tea cups … it’s all she had left,” said volunteer Dave Phillips, 63, secretary of the Bungalow Rugby Club.
“Incredibly some people have been upbeat, one house had a written sign outside saying ‘oyster farm here … first come first served.’”
While the bodies are retracting from Lismore, the compassion to help flood victims is evident in the burgeoning number of GoFundMe pages and fundraising efforts, among them the GWS Giants raising almost $100,000 for the hardest hit.
The NRL has committed to creating a $500,000 relief fund to assist grassroots clubs affected by the disaster.
The Sydney Roosters pulled on the socks of the Mullumbimby Giants as a show of support for the region, with the club and Easts Group pledging $50,000 to assist victims.
Giants chairman Tony Shepherd said the club’s industrial kitchen at Homebush has been pumping out meals for the needy, an idea spawned after the Giants kitchen previously helped those in western Sydney affected by the Covid lockdown.
“The model worked well, we delivered many thousands of meals to western Sydney,” he said.
“When the floods hit, we thought ‘well, let’s do the same again’.
“We are already delivering food to Lismore, we took a truck up there loaded with food, meat and coffee.
“We’re going to continue this and do similar stuff in northwestern Sydney for the people also affected by the floods. It’s part of our community work, wherever possible the players will get involved and help with the packing and delivery.”
A 34kms south of Lismore, Woodburn made headlines when around fifty people, ten horses and around thirty traumatised cows spent the night camped on the arched bridge after being stranded overnight above flood waters.
Koolarena Horse Riding School owner Natalie Skillings-Smith moved 20 of her riding ponies, stock, thoroughbred and agisted horses to higher ground stables ahead of the heaviest deluge and when the floods rose last Monday afternoon led her ten stranded horses by a tinny to Woodburn Bridge.
“I could hear my three pet jersey cows drowning, they were bellowing in the water, and the horses were swimming with their heads above water and resting their hoofs on fence posts when they could, it was so traumatic to see, but my husband and I rescued as many as we could in the tinny, eight trips back and forth,” she said, tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry to get emotional, but I don’t like to see my animals die. I lost one horse, he broke his leg, I had to put him down.
“We’re rebuilding, slowly, the house, the business, we need to government to give us a hand.
“I slept with my horses on the bridge for seven days. It was like a shanty town on the bridge.
“Some of them, the mares, and the thoroughbreds, swam up to their necks for more than 10 hours in the water until we could lead them to safety on the bridge.
“I’m going to make the Boris’s school the Bridge Horses in honour of those who survived.”
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