Lismore prepared for the worst. Now boxes are being unpacked as life returns to normal

For days, business owners in Lismore worked desperately to prepare for flooding they feared could transport the town back to the devastation of 2022.

This time, as then-tropical cyclone Alfred closed in, they boxed stock, loaded refrigeration equipment onto trucks, enlisted the help of friends and family, and prepared for the worst.

Rod Jackson, owner of Woodhouse Denim, in his empty Lismore store. Rod removed all his stock due to the floods. Credit: Louise Kennerley

Now, as the town looks to have escaped another natural disaster, the boxes are being unpacked, the trucks unloaded and the generous helpers recruited to return life to normal.

Despite the relief of avoiding a repeat of 2022, when the Wilsons River breached Lismore’s levee and inundated the town, it’s gruelling work.

But it has become a necessity for traders in the Northern Rivers town who say they can’t afford to insure against flooding, or can’t find an insurer that will cover them.

Rod Jackson, who owns the clothing store Woodhouse Denim, has taken the advice of many fellow business owners and opted to go without the cover, which could cost him tens of thousands of dollars.

“It’s unaffordable and very difficult to get,” Jackson said.

“I’ve been told categorically it’s not doable, and if it were doable, the cost would be out of the question for a small business like this.”

Jackson estimates he lost about $100,000 worth of stock in the 2022 floods and only reopened because of government relief packages that covered half of his losses.

Without insurance, he was left $50,000 out of pocket.

Emily Morgan inside her flooded home in Harwood. Credit: Louise Kennerley

Around the corner, Miller’s Bakery owner Thanh Tran spent Monday night returning equipment to his store after it was emptied last week when the town was preparing for the worst.

Besides the cost of hiring trucks to transport the equipment, the outlay of delivering it to a storage facility, and lost income, returning the bakery to trading will take days.

After the 2022 floods, Tran borrowed money from his parents and took out a loan to cover his losses.

“If we had insurance we wouldn’t worry about flooding in Lismore,” Tran said as family members pushed equipment back into the bakery nearby.

About 70 kilometres south of Lismore, Jackson’s stepson Brett Strauss, who owns the Harwood Hotel, “flood-proofed” the watering hole when he bought it with his business partner after the 2022 floods swept through the town, home to a few hundred people on the banks of the Clarence River.

Brett Strauss outside his flooded pub the Harwood Hotel.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Insurers won’t cover against flooding, and Strauss relies on his own funds to repair any damage that may come.

But like Lismore, flooding and its consequences are part of life for the Harwood locals wading with their children through floodwaters on Monday afternoon.

When the pub closed on Sunday night, Strauss enlisted the help of his regulars, who will again be recruited to return it to normal on Tuesday as the river recedes.

“This town is super close-knit,” Strauss said.

“It’s that community spirit of sticking together and being resilient [that] is probably the biggest thing for local business owners.

“People up here, they’re tough … they band together and they chip in to help each other out.”

Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib said he was pleased that shops in Lismore had begun to reopen but reiterated the state was “not quite out of the woods yet”.

“It is really important to recognise that while we are talking about the movement of evacuation orders, say, in Lismore, at the same time we still have other places that are at risk of flash-flooding, a risk of a storm, a risk of [destructive] wind,” he said.

Grafton residents survey the level of the Clarence River on Monday.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Communities across northern NSW remain under watch and act advice after emergency warnings were lifted on Monday, despite the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred continuing to bring heavy rains.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said emergency efforts were still “very much in the response phase at the moment”, but the NSW Reconstruction Authority had already begun recovery operations in some communities.

Minns said the state government would begin closing evacuation centres as necessary, insisting that emergency shelters could not be used to alleviate long-term homelessness problems in the Northern Rivers, which has some of the highest rates of homelessness in the country.

Premier Chris Minns provides an update on the response effort to ex-tropical cyclone Alfred from the SES headquarters in Sydney.Credit: Steven Siewert

More than 9000 homes and businesses in NSW remained without power as of Monday afternoon, distributor Essential Energy said, down from a high of 43,000 homes in the past three days, with the number expected to change throughout the day.

More than 90 schools will remain closed on Tuesday, though some public transport services have resumed in flood-affected areas.

A $15 million recovery fund is already available to NSW councils and their communities, and Minns said he expected the government would announce support packages for some flood victims once the scale of the damage was clearer.

As thoughts turn to recovery, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has praised the decision by local councils in both states to shut down early in preparation for Cyclone Alfred despite it being less severe than originally predicted.

Speaking from Lismore, Albanese praised the work of volunteers, emergency services and ADF troops, more than 1000 of whom have been deployed across Queensland and northern NSW as part of the recovery effort.

“We need to make sure that we give the respect that these fine volunteers deserve … we want them to have less to do, not more to do, and what that requires is for people … to listen to the official advice from someone from the SES, or the police or emergency services, or the Australian Defence Force.”

Jenny McAllister, the federal emergency management minister, said the recovery period would be lengthy and called on the insurance sector to “look out for their customers”.

“We know that recovery will be long when we have events at this scale ... we start with what people need, but we move quickly to clean up and trying to repair [the] damage, and the insurance sector is part of that.

“We want them to play a constructive role, and we expect that they will.”

With Olivia Ireland and Nick O’Malley

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