Northern NSW floods: Stories inside the Banora Point evacuation centre
Two women await word to see if their partners are still alive, a couple rely on donations with nothing left but keys and a wallet while others relive the trauma of the 2017 floods. These are stories of survival inside the evacuation centre.
Tweed Heads
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On the corner of Leisure Drive and Woodlands Rd in Banora lies the Salvation evacuation centre – a place more than 100 residents have called home for the past five days.
The centre is set up with a dining area in one room, tables upon tables full of donations next to a cafeteria and a third room filled to the brim with blow up mattresses.
Inside a little nook beside the cafeteria sisters-in-law Beverly Simmons and Tina Macheda have a small space to themselves and their dog Shiba.
Mrs Simmon is certain Shiba was meant to be with them as other people in the centre stop and pat her.
But the smiles quickly turn to tears.
“Our other halves are still there and we haven’t heard from them,” Ms Macheda said.
“When we left them there was another three feet to go and there’s been tonnes of rain,” Mrs Simmons said.
“We just need to know they’re okay.”
It was 12.45am on Monday when water started to creep into their Tumbulgum Rd home in Tygalgah.
Out the front is the Tweed River, out the back the Rous, and both were rising fast.
But the main thing on Mrs Simmons’ mind was how she was going to get her 94-year-old father-in-law Edward Simmons who suffers from Parkinson's disease to safety.
Immediately they were on the phone trying to get onto the SES but they couldn’t get through.
Ms Macheda went to the second storey of their home and stood out on the balcony and continued to wave down anyone who went past – at the same time thinking “what’s plan B” staring out a tree wondering if they’d be able to cling on.
Soon a local on a jet ski came past and picked up Ms Macheda and organised another boat to pick up Mrs Simmons and her father-in-law.
Mrs Simmons described the man who picked her and her father-in-law as a “gentle giant” taking them to the Tumbulgum bridge where they’d be further transported to the Tweed Hospital where Edward remains.
Unfortunately the boat only had space for her, the dog and a bag of essentials, with the Gary and Willard two men waiting behind at the house.
Ms Macheda said if it weren’t for the local people on the boats and on the Tumbulgum bridge, they don’t know how they would have got out.
“You take them away and there’s hardly any SES,” she said.
“If it wasn’t for them, half of the people wouldn’t be here.”
At nightfall the sisters were reunited at the Banora Point evacuation centre where they remain, unaware of where their partners are or when they’ll be able to return home.
But there, surrounded by strangers, they’ve made life long friends and grown their bond even stronger.
Gary and Willard are still missing. Please email liana.walker@news.com.au if you know their whereabouts.
With two dogs of her own Carol Cooper is surrounded by neighbours as she sits outside the evacuation centre.
In the early hours of Monday morning she watched water seep into her caravan at Tweed Shores holiday park raised a metre and a half off the ground.
And it kept coming up.
Soon the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease sufferer found herself on the top of a table with the dogs, watching her fridge lift from the ground and float from the kitchen into the lounge room, questioning how long she would be stuck there for.
It was five hours.
“We had no SES warnings, nothing from the mangers of the park,” she said.
“None of the wardens in the park had said anything – no one had told us anything.”
She had tried to contact the SES to no avail, her only contact from her home care group in Sydney.
Two young fishermen came on a boat to the village taking residents to safety.
From there it was a climb into a fire truck followed to a bus to the evacuation centre where she would stay.
The timing was interesting.
During the 2017 floods her husband was diagnosed with cancer, this time round on Tuesday he’s been declared in the clear.
“From one flood, to the next flood it was bad then good,” she said.
“I know things are hard to replace, but at the end of the day they’re just things.
“We’re alive.”
Also from the Tweed Shores Holiday Park was resident of eight years Sharon Rawlinson.
She was one of the first to arrive at the Banora Point evacuation centre on Sunday, able to be evacuated by road by the SES as the water levels weren’t too high at that stage.
Watching the waters rise and having lived through the 2017 floods Mrs Rawlinson wasn’t going to wait around and see what happened.
Like Carol Cooper, she was concerned about the communication from the park managers.
But her concern lied largely with the more vulnerable residents of the park, including those with dementia and schizophrenia.
“They were left for dead,” Mrs Rawlinson said.
“I said to the SES ‘please there are vulnerable people that don’t even know what day it is yet alone what to do in a flood situation’.
“I said ‘please send a boat back for people.’”
Now with many of those residents at the evacuation centre with her, she doesn’t feel like she can leave.
“There’s people here who are vulnerable who can’t be left to their own devices – I’m trying to look after them,” she said.
Enjoying a donated lunch wearing clothing from the Salvation Army, Jack and Melva Dunn came to the centre with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, a set of keys and a wallet.
The 81-year-olds were in the recreation centre of the Chinderah Village caravan park when they saw the water start to come up on Monday.
Mr Dunn started to pack a car to get out of the park but the water had risen too far before they could leave.
The couple of 50 years waded through metres of knee deep water to get to a boat, which they had to get off and wade through more water, get to another car, onto a fire truck, onto a bus and then to the into the evacuation centre.
“The service is magnificent – it’s better a hotel,” Mr Dunn said
“This is the first time I’ve come to appreciate the Salvation Army – I’ve heard about it but never experienced it.”
Mrs Dunn said the people who helped them were just neighbours in a speedboat who were able to take them up a river before dropping them on a highway.
Despite losing their caravan she’s still in high spirits.
“We just can’t express how thankful we are,” Mrs Dunn said.
Outside the centre Dianne and Yvain Bankier with Linda Madden wait for a bus to arrive so they can return to their homes at another Chinderah holiday park to inspect the damage.
Yvain keeps a positive attitude, knowing how resilient she is having lost everything in the 2017 floods.
“Been there, done that, got through it last time I know I can get through it this time,” she said.
“There’s no point being ‘woe is me’ it doesn’t help.”
Her mother Dianne found herself with water over her head swimming in the spare room.
“I walked out carrying cats, bags, we had to walk to where the bus was waiting,” she said.
Ms Madden said they were some of the last people to get out and did so using kayaks to take goods and people about a kilometre away where a bus was waiting.
“Everyone got out,” Yvain said.
“But everyone lost everything.”
The centre has come together thanks to co-ordination from the Salvation Army.
Major Nicole Viles said at the busiest they had 150 people, with almost 40 volunteers in just one day.
There are representatives from department of communities and justice, red cross and Anglicare to have a co-ordinated approach to help with the evacuation.
Major Viles said the residents staying at the centre had been riding waves of emotions over the past week.
“When they first came people were very stressed because it was very upsetting their whole world had been turned upside down,” she said.
“Then over the last few days it has very much become a family out there – almost to the point where they don't want to move on because they feel safe.”
The centre has also been inundated with donations of food, clothing and other items – to the point they can’t take anymore.
Instead they’re asking people to wait for the Chinderah Recovery centre to open up where people will need donations for longer periods.
“While schools will reopen in the next few days and things start to get back to some semblance of normality, for a lot of people that is going to be months, potentially years before they get back to that place at equilibrium,” she said.
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