Murwillumbah floods: Businesses and residents begin clean-up
Murwillumbah businesses and residents are taking steps to recover from devastating flooding, some for the second time in five years. See the pics.
Tweed Heads
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Covered in mud on Tweed Valley Way, Kevin Dawson and daughter-in-law Gemma spent Saturday clearing out possessions that once stood in the lower level Mr Dawson’s Condong home.
Mr Dawson has lived in the house for 50 years and lived through multiple floods but had never seen anything like what tore through on Monday.
“It just wouldn’t stop raining,” Mr Dawson said.
“This flood was the biggest flood we’ve ever had.”
Around the back of his house, Mr Dawson showed up a wooden plank which he used to partition off the back doors – but the water levels made it far past the door.
He pointed out a pontoon which broke off the river behind the house where he lived with his wife of 60 years, Julie.
The damage of the 2017 floods combined with the most recent inundation weighed heavily on him when deciding if he and he wife stayed put or moved house.
“I don’t know what to do now, my wife wants to get out, she said she can’t stand another one,” Mr Dawson said.
“We’ve been putting up with it for 50 years it might be getting too much for me to.
“I don’t want to go … but I’m not getting any younger.”
Just down the road Nicky Smith also has the 2017 floods on her mind.
“I’ve lost absolutely everything I own, again,” Ms Smith said.
“I lost everything in the 2017 floods, replaced it, and then this was higher than 2017.”
Her entire three-bedroom place, the bottom floor of a duplex, was filled with water.
She managed to escape the water by spending the time with her upstairs neighbour and sat there watching it for three days.
“This time around it was just stuff – all my photos and memorable things were lost five years ago,” she said.
“This time it was just stuff – nothing personal – I’ve already been through that one.”
Unfortunately, Emily Clark on Tumbulgum Road in Murwillumbah couldn’t say the same thing.
The floods which inundated her home took the remaining memories of her late parents.
Photos, letters and items her parents collected were all destroyed.
“I’ve obviously lost all the normal household stuff, the kitchen’s destroyed, lounges, washing machines, dryers,”
“But for me, none of that stuff really matters – it’s all the sentimental stuff that’s hard.”
She said the house had never had water in it before.
“This house is actually one of the oldest in the street,” Ms Clark said.
“It’s only ever lapped at the floorboards in the 1974 flood, it’s never come inside the house.”
She said the water came about a 50cm inside the house, which was already risen about a metre off the ground.
She said she was fortunate not to be at the house at the time and was even more grateful for the strangers who had helped her clean.
South Murwillumbah resident David Le Van sat on the back stairs of his Railway Street home on Saturday, exhausted from cleaning and calling his insurer.
On Monday his house was filled to the brim with flood water – destroying renovations that weren’t even finished from the 2017 floods.
But his main concern lied with where his wife, a leukaemia patient, was going to go when she was discharged from hospital in the next week.
“Everything’s gone,” he said.
“She can’t come here.”
He said he and his two sons didn’t wait to see how bad the water would get and fled to an evacuation centre in the early hours of Monday.
“It was terrifying – the mental stress is unreal,” he said.
“I’m not getting much sleep at the moment, just waking up thinking about it.”
He said there were some concerns with the drainage at the end of the street, echoed by other residents on Railway St.
“This was never supposed to happen again but it has within five years – something is wrong,” Mr Le Van said.
In the centre of town businesses cleared out their shops on Saturday.
Some of them had not previously had water inside their stores.
Gabe Finardi was out the back of Fresh Wholefoods on Proudfoots Lane.
He said he had never seen such damage to the cool rooms and shop which his family had run for the past 25 years.
“I’m still taking it in and working out where we’re at,” Mr Finardi said.
He said Proudfoots Lane was already a metre deep in water due to drainage issues before flood water came over the levee wall.
But he considered himself lucky despite having to throw a lot of stock away.
“We’ll rebuild and get back, we’re a lot luckier than a lot of other people,” he said.
“We can actually reopen the store.”
Further up Proudfoots Lane towards Brisbane St, Robert Leveridge is also cleaning up his business.
He said My Fashion Store was starting to run smoothly after 18 months in business, to the point Mr Leveridge and his partner David were ready to open a second store.
Now that doesn’t look possible for another six to 12 months.
“We’ve lost thousands of dollars worth of clothing, let alone anything else,” he said.
Flood waters filled underneath the store and got into ventilation and electric systems.
It caused moisture to come into the store and create mould which destroyed the clothes.
Husband David said he expected the business to be reopened in coming weeks.
On the corner of Brisbane St and Wollumbin St the M-Arts precinct was one of the hardest hit.
Artists walked around the centre on Saturday, too emotional to speak as they cleared out their hubs into a growing pile out the front.
Ceramics creator Karen Bothmann was fortunate her art survived the water – with just shelves and her store space to repair.
“Everybody lost something,” she said.
“Everybody is traumatised and overwhelmed.
“Two days ago when we walked in here it was like a war zone.”
She was highly appreciative of all the people who had helped her clean.
Many of those people were dropping in next door where Tom Cornish was waiting to be able to open his licenced cafe.
He had converted the space into a volunteer hub where people were bringing cleaning supplies, food and labour.
He said he needed people with machinery and drivers to help with the clean-up.
Back on Tweed Valley Way, Ryan Garbett went house to house with his digger on Saturday to scrape mud and rubbish away.
“I’ve just seen everyone go through the devastation- so I just wanted to help out,” Mr Garbett said.
He said it was hard to fathom the damage until he saw it.
He was one of many people going around Murwillumbah doing their best to help complete strangers clean.
The Murwillumbah CBD was given the all clear from flooding by the State Emergency Service on Saturday morning.
A recovery centre was also opened on Saturday at the Murwillumbah Civic Centre.
In the centre there is a large number of government staff to assist residents and businesses to apply for assistance and lodgement of grants for financial support.
The centre will operate 7 days a week from 9am to 5pm.
Assistance will help with the clean up but residents know – many from experience – there’s still a lot of work to be done before the town can recover.
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