Elderly Helensvale couple reveal can’t move back in for a year after brutal storms and flooding

An elderly Helensvale couple lucky not to have been killed in the wild Christmas storm on the Gold Coast are now facing a grim new reality. Find out why.

Just over a week ago Bob and Trish Avery were merely happy to be alive.

Their Helensvale home’s roof was ripped off in the freak Christmas night storm that raged through the Gold Coast and the pair believed if they’d been home they would have been killed.

Thankfully, they were staying away at their son’s place.

The Bulletin caught up with them on Wednesday just on a week later to see how they were going - when the reality of the long-term recovery they face to restore their home had become apparent.

“I think it’ll be 12 months before we are back in this house,” Mr Avery said.

“We’re lucky we’ve got good kids. We will stay at our son’s house up near Brisbane until we can come back to this one.” he said.

Already facing months of rebuilding after the storms, Mr Avery said the tarp they pulled across their decimated roof did little to stem the torrential rain and floods that followed.

“We put a tarp over the roof but that’s crashed in with the weight of all the rain. It’s all flooded still,” Mr Avery said.

The roof of Bob Avery’s home was covered in tarp after the devastating Christmas Day Storms but the New Year’s downpour has left it caving in, flooding his home. Picture: Adam Head

“The water had gone right through every room except the top bedroom, every other room in the house got flooded.” he said.

Mr Avery revealed family and neighbours are the only people to have offered to help him and his wife in the weeks since the disasters.

“We’re just getting all of the furniture into the [shipping container], I did my back in trying to move that big table. But we didn’t need this,” he said.

Bob Avery at his home damaged in Helensvale which was smashed by a ferocious storm on Christmas night leaving a trail of destruction and 1 woman losing her life. Pics Adam Head

Not only have Mr Avery and his wife Trish been left to salvage what they can from their home of 42 years without any assistance from the authorities, they are struggling to access assistance on offer.

“We’re not very savvy, we have no internet, all our computers are water damaged and we don’t have power either.” he said when asked whether he would be applying for government grants which included immediate emegency cash of $180 per person affected.

“The government helps you to a point with funding but when we applied for some sort of assistance they wanted to know how much we had in the bank and how much our income was.

“You just give up - it’s too hard.” Mr Avery said.

The roof of Bob Avery’s home was covered in tarp after the devastating Christmas Day Storms but the New Year’s downpour has left it caving in, flooding his home. Picture: Adam Head

Then in a double whammy the tarps covering the roof did little to stop the barrage of rain that battered the Gold Coast on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day from flooding Mr Avery’s home.

Mr Avery said they had to rip up carpet throughout the house because rain had come through the roof and “drenched the floors”.

“We ripped it all up because we didn’t want it getting mouldy or to damage the concrete underneath,” he said.

This disaster comes just five years after a brutal hailstorm that left the Averys replacing their roof for the first time.

“We had a bad hailstorm about five years ago now - insurance companies said they’d replace everything, they put in a new roof. Now we have to do it again,” Mr Avery said.