‘Nobody knew quite how horrific it was going to be’

Dead cows pinned to barbed-wire farm fences. Light aeroplanes washed off runways and bent around trees like rubber. Guinea pigs swimming in storm water, saved by townspeople in tinnies.

Freelance writer and Northern Rivers resident Candida Baker heard and saw it all during the catastrophic flooding on Australia’s east coast earlier this year. Reporting from communities in chaos, Baker tells Good Weekend Talks that she also heard of people who worked together like never before, united not just by the trauma of what they had already gone through but the challenging (and ongoing) reconstruction of their homes.

“It’s hard to imagine it until you have actually seen it,” says Baker, who charted the region for our cover story this week: “Aftermath”.

“The floods came [in February] after six months of extremely wet weather. The rivers were full, the dams were full, the lakes were full. When it started raining so heavily, we knew that there was an event coming. But of course, nobody knew quite how horrific it was going to be.”

Talking to Greg Callaghan, deputy editor of Good Weekend, Baker says the power of the water was inconceivable. “Nothing was spared,” she says. “Every single house, every single shop, every single building. The sight of huge shipping containers picked up and chucked around as if some sort of giant had just come along, twisting everything, almost for amusement.”

Equally compelling, however, were the scores of tireless individuals finding the energy and will to support one another. “Within all the tragedy, there were these miraculous things that happened,” she says. “One of the things I found very, very moving was that it didn’t seem to matter how much help someone had given or how many people they’d rescued, every single person felt like they could have done more.”

Good Weekend Talks offers readers the chance to delve even deeper each week into Good Weekend’s most intriguing stories, with lively insight from writers, editors and experts. Listen to more episodes by subscribing to Good Weekend Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

For the full feature story, see Saturday’s Good Weekend, or visit The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.

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