Flood of heroism on a day rescuers’ bravery soared

Scenes of disaster and heroism played out in towns in northern NSW and southeast Queensland as volunteers and defence personnel stepped in to save lives.

Three-month-old baby Elodie is handed to a rescuer by her father in Tumbulgum, northern NSW. Picture: Liam Mendes

A three-month-old baby is handed between rescuers as floodwaters surge around their boat; a helicopter crewman dangles from a cable as fierce winds topple a television aerial beside him; neighbours pull fellow neighbours from houses disappearing under the might of a once-in-a-thousand-year flood.

Scenes of disaster and heroism played out in towns all over northern NSW and southeast Queensland on Tuesday as overwhelmed emergency services reached their limits, and local volunteers and Australian Defence Force personnel stepped in to help save lives.

Families smashed their way through ceilings to get to the relative safety of rooftops. Rescuers swam or waded chest-deep in houses swirling with brown water, searching for the elderly and the missing. People and pets were loaded aboard kayaks and jetskis.

Tumbulgum residents are evacuated in darkness as waters rise. Picture: Liam Mendes

A second woman has been found dead in a home in Lismore. It comes as the body of another woman in her 80s was recovered by police inside another Lismore home earlier on Tuesday. Ballina Hospital has evacuated all medical personnel and patients due to rising flood waters.

All 55 general medical and rehabilitation patients were temporarily relocated to Xavier Catholic College, the Northern NSW Local Health District said.

“Extra NNSWLHD staff have been called in and are working alongside NSW Police, NSW Ambulance and the SES to ensure the safe transfer of all patients, whose families have been notified,” the NNSWLHD said.

“A makeshift emergency department is being set up at Xavier Catholic College for anyone in the community in need of emergency care while the hospital is temporarily closed.”

An SMS was sent to the Ballina community, alerting them of the evacuation.

For Rachel Borey and her partner Cyrille-Kofi Adja, the terrifying ordeal began when water reached their home near the town of Tumbulgum in northern NSW late on Sunday night.

The couple started to move their belongings to a higher level while their three-month-old baby Elodie was cared for next door.

“We were using our furniture to put things higher and it got to a point where we were shoulder-deep in water, and we were still ­trying to put things up higher,” Ms Borey said.

“Every time the water was coming in, we were trying to put things higher and higher.”

By then the power had gone and it was clear they had to save themselves and their baby.

When some local volunteers arrived in a rescue boat, the water was already lapping at the second level of the house.

“At that stage, both the houses next to us were under,” she said.

“I was really, really petrified. I was fine up until the water kept coming up but I was scared to put the baby on the boat,” she said.

“I had to trust people to hold my baby while I got on the boat. It was crazy. There were random people with their boats rescuing people. It was pretty amazing.”

 

The evacuation began with a 20-minute boat ride to a bridge, before they had to walk over the bridge and wait an hour-and-a-half for a second, much smaller boat with seven people aboard to take them to safety. “I was worried that we were going to hit something, or that we were going to run out of petrol and we were going to be stuck on this little boat,” the exhausted mother said.

Others among the 300-odd ­inhabitants of the small village of Tumbulgum had similar stories.

Residents were picked up from their now-riverside homes in barges and boats before they were taken to the bridge – the only part of town not covered in water – to take another boat ride to safety.

In the background, a car alarm blared incessantly; locals said it was submerged in floodwaters, its owner unable to be found.

Residents said the town was used to flooding, but the disaster that has unfolded this week was “unexpected and unique”.

Noel and Judy Emzin are certain the waters will rise higher than the 1974 and 2017 floods. They didn’t have to evacuate in 2017. Mr Emzin said this flood was unpredictable, with an evacuation order made at the last minute.

Horses and cars stranded on a Lismore bridge. Picture: Seven News

“Messages didn’t come through,” he said. “There was no prediction of this going anywhere near the 2017 floods. We stayed at home at that time and it was only chest deep,” he said.

This time was different.

“The amount of rain that was coming was torrential, it went from Saturday night, 1am in the morning and it never stopped,” he said. “It’s like we had our own backyard pool,” he said. “It was torrential, it was non-stop”.

When the Emzins were picked up from the home they moved into eight years ago, the water was already inside the house.

They fear they’ll return to a home converted into a houseboat, such was the force of the water.

“It could take out one of the pillars of the house, it could just push the house over,” Mr Emzin said.

Tumbulgum Community Association president Jenny Kidd said local residents, who were ­accustomed to floods, had been caught off-guard.

“This flood ended up being 0.8 of a metre above our previous highest flood which was 2017. That was only five years ago and people use that as a reference point,” she said.

“The 2017 flood was meant to be a once-in-a-hundred-year event,” she said.

The rescues were “a spontaneous effort by local people with boats and people that we didn’t know with the boats,” she said.

A woman is saved by an ADF helicopter team near Lismore on Tuesday. Picture: Seven News

Further south, just outside ­Lismore, about 50 people and at least five horses were rescued from a bridge after being stranded overnight above floodwaters.

The motorists – and residents who took their horses in a bid to escape rising waters – became trapped on Monday night when floodwaters overran both ends of the arched Woodburn bridge.

Emergency services patrolling the Lismore region said more than 1000 residents had been caught in the area for up to 24 hours, unable to evacuate because of the rapid rise of the river.

Elsewhere in northern NSW, a daring helicopter rescue unfolded live on television, with an extraordinary display of skill and courage by the ADF crew.

Shortly before midday on Tuesday, three people were spotted on the roof of an isolated house in Woodburn, surrounded by floodwaters from the swollen Richmond River with only the roof of the two storey building above water.

The two men and a woman stood, linking hands, as the helicopter approached.

A dog waited patiently in a boat that was tied to the building.

A crewman from a navy helicopter was lowered to the roof in heavy winds but slipped and fell through the corrugated roof on his first attempt.

After emerging from the water and clambering back onto the building, the crewman was able to attach a rescue ring to one of the three and they were winched up to the helicopter.

The pair swung wildly on the cable in the heavy winds, narrowly missing trees as the crewman gave hand signals to direct the pilot, but finally made it successfully up to the helicopter.

As the second person was being lifted, a television aerial on the roof next to them snapped and the rescue had to be aborted for ­several minutes as the cable was disentangled and the helicopter hovered overhead.

Finally, each of the other two was lifted into the helicopter despite the precarious conditions.

The three lucky survivors were then taken to the Lismore evacuation centre.

It is unclear what became of the dog.

Other residents of Woodburn and the neighbouring town of Broadwater, about 26km south of Ballina, were taken by boat to Evans Head as both towns flooded and the rain engulfed roads.

Social media was flooded with calls for boat rescues for friends, neighbours, livestock and pets as well as for supplies including bedding, phone chargers and food.

Evans Head resident Juanita Mohammed said she had been ­inundated with offers of help and said there were people who had lost their homes boating other people to safety.

“They have been going for 24 hours,” she said.

Ms Mohammed said about 300 people remained stranded in Woodburn on Tuesday morning, with the number falling to 150 by 5pm after volunteers ferried people to Evans Head.

Local butcher Metcalf Quality Meats donated meat while the local Spar supermarket donated bottled water.

Evans Head residents donated meals including soups, quiches, fried rice, spaghetti bolognaise, cookies, muffins and even gluten-free meals for people who were intolerant, Ms Mohammed said.

The deputy commissioner for the SES, David Austin, comm­ended the “incredibly brave and risky” acts of residents in northern NSW, but warned volunteers not to underestimate the danger of floodwaters.

“Our crew are working tirelessly up on the north coast, our SES volunteers are well supported by other emergency agencies like the fire services, the police, the ambulance and also by the Australian Defence Force,” he said.

Additional reporting: Remy Varga