The NSW Mid North Coast floods are another warning things must change

We need rain. Rain’s coming. The heat’s coming. A change is on the way … Weather is the universal subject of the Australian bush. It welcomes, farewells, fills awkward silences, an eternal conversation that all locals speak.

Yet, many have still been knocked sideways by the “one-in-500-year” flood that is currently inundating the NSW Mid North Coast and the Hunter.

The Taree area is facing its largest flood on record.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Just two months after Cyclone Alfred caused widespread flooding across NSW, the media have been talking about huge amounts of rain heading towards NSW for more than a week. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning of heavy rainfall and damaging winds for parts of the Hunter, Mid North Coast, Northwest Slopes and Plains, and Northern Tablelands from last Monday.

Four days later, floodwaters have entered dozens of towns and villages, including Kempsey, Macksville, Coffs Harbour and Nambucca, Taree, Wingham, Woolgoolga, Sawtell, Smithtown, Gladstone and Dorrigo. The bureau has forecast rain of between 100 and 300 mm over the next 24 hours and warns Sydney is to be drenched too.

The consequences are historic: some 50,000 people are isolated, more than 9500 homes are at risk, 145 schools have been closed, the State Emergency Service has performed more than 500 flood rescues, and three are dead and another is missing.

Emergency services and evacuation centres have now stepped up, and the federal disaster recovery allowance is available. Still, many residents have been caught unprepared, even though natural disasters have become a way of life. NSW was hit by bushfires in 2019–20 fires, closely followed by the 2021 floods, and then followed the even worse and more extensive 2022 floods. Many communities smashed by floodwater are still recovering from earlier floods or bushfires: Taree, hit by a major flood in 2021, now faces the largest flood on record.

Many towns evolved on flood plains when rivers were the roadways of early settlement and residents built on stilts or above flood levels. Now, concrete slab construction is the favoured build for many new Mid North Coast homes. The 2022 Flood Inquiry report noted that developments for the growing populations had been, or were being, built on floodplains exposed to flood risk that perversely affected the most vulnerable residents who could not afford to buy safer houses out of the waters’ reach.

Premier Chris Minns warned the flooded communities that they should brace for more bad news in the next 24 hours. “I say this every time there’s a natural disaster, and the grim reality is that we’re getting more and more used to this because there’s more and more of these natural disasters,” he said.

The mop-up after the 2022 floods in northern NSW was hampered by a lack of understanding between communities, government agencies and private companies, including insurers, that prolonged the suffering for many victims. Hopefully, the lessons have been learned to ease the pain for Mid North Coast residents in the months ahead as they struggle to recover from their devastating losses.

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