Tony and Shirley Buckles left with nothing after February 2022 Gympie flood

A Gympie region couple has revealed how 50 years of their lives and memories vanished in a single night after 83-year-old Tony Buckles had to be carried from their flooding home by his 82-year-old wife Shirley.

One night was all it took for the half-century Tony and Shirley Buckles spent building a life together to be washed away.

The Southside couple, who called the Gympie region suburb home for 15 years, are trying to rebuild after 82-year-old Mrs Buckles was forced to carry her 83-year-old wheelchair-bound husband to safety.

Mr Buckles relied on his electric wheelchair to get around but was forced to abandon it when the rising Mary River began to threaten both their lives.

The Buckles had been waiting for an evacuation order they said never came until more than 12 hours after they abandoned their Laisandra Dr home.

By the time they fled, the floodwaters were already over the patio and inside their home.

They escaped with only the clothes on their back.

Shirley Buckles, 82, was forced to carry her 83-year-old husband to safety from the rising flood waters which inundated their Gympie home in February.

The next five days were spent at the evacuation centre at the Pavilion with about 200 other flood victims.

Most of their paperwork and memories were gone, including items such as their marriage licence, forcing them to try to simply re-establish who they are in society.

They are now living in a small miner’s cottage at Hervey Bay, their Southside home having been condemned after the floodwaters dragged sewage through it.

They have managed to secure a duplex to rent on the Fraser Coast, but cannot move into it until the end of April.

Mr Buckles said they were aware this made them the “luckiest people”, with reports of residents across the Gympie region being left homeless and forced to sleep in tents and cars in the month since the floods.

He now had a temporary wheelchair lent to him by a woman, albeit one which was a few sizes too small.

It had been used by her son until he outgrew it.

Not that he was complaining.

“It’s a bit small but it does the job,” Mr Buckles said.

He was still keen for a replacement to his old chair though.

“I want one I can get out and around in,” he said, saying he was going “stir crazy” being stuck at the cottage.

Buying a new one was going to cost from $4000-$5000.

The Buckles said they had been waiting for an evacuation order but it did not come until 12 hours after they’d fled.

“They said they’ll insure the chair provided it doesn’t leave the property,” Mr Buckles said.

This was an issue because it was his only means of getting around.

Mr Buckles had been unable to get support from government bodies because of their home and contents insurance but “we still don’t know what the insurance is going to do”.

The chair itself was not insured.

Replacing it could take up to a year.

“We’re in limbo at the moment,” Mr Buckles said.

“We’ve got nothing.”

Mrs Buckles said it was the second time her family had lost everything; the first was in Holland in the Second World War.

This only made their inability to secure support to help them recover more acute.

“We worked so hard since we came here in 1950, and (being left with nothing) is what we get” Mrs Buckle said.

Originally published as Tony and Shirley Buckles left with nothing after February 2022 Gympie flood