Doug and Alyse spent three years fighting their insurance company. Then the floods came again

The finishing touches are yet to be put on the house, says Doug Richardson.

There’s painting and other bits and pieces to do at the Brunswick Street property. Part-worksite, part-home, it contains a mix of newly bought furniture and building materials, symbols of the road back to normality following the 2022 floods.

More than three years have passed since the Wilsons River climbed over Lismore’s levee and inundated Richardson’s home, minutes from the city centre. Now, the end of the gruelling rebuild is in sight.

But Richardson and his wife, Alyse Dorbis-Richardson, were in the same situation as many Lismore residents still rebuilding from the devastation of 2022 recently: spending days expecting the worst as ex-tropical cyclone Alfred approached.

Doug and Alyse (pictured in March 2022) are considering their future in Lismore after years of rebuilding their home.Credit: Elise Derwin

Angst brought by the threat of a repeat of that disaster, and the possibility that their unfinished home would go under again, prompted the two to consider their future in the Northern Rivers town.

“What happens if we keep getting smashed?” Alyse says.

Lismore and other parts of northern NSW were spared major damage when Alfred was downgraded as it approached the coast, but the near-miss left many locals on edge about the city’s vulnerability.

History repeating: Alyse Dorbis-Richardson and husband Doug Richardson outside their Lismore home this week.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Planning for the future is not the only challenge that people in Lismore face. Like others in the city, the two have fought with their insurer over how damage to their home of more than a decade should have been covered, and say they have been left out of pocket.

“I had to fight them all the way,” Doug says.

At the peak of the 2022 flood, water in the house rose a metre high and left the property almost destroyed. It was a year before Doug and Alyse could start rebuilding, while their insurance claim was processed.

In May 2023, after a conciliation process through the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, Doug and Alyse settled with their insurer, NRMA.

“Our aim is always to support our customers recover from extreme weather events as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any delays during the claims process,” an NRMA Insurance spokesperson said in a statement.

“We’ve long advocated for greater investment in disaster mitigation initiatives. NRMA Insurance is committed to working with governments at all levels to protect communities from the impacts of extreme weather and natural disasters and we’ve welcomed progress on this front.”

Doug and Alyse, who own a waterproofing business, have since renewed their insurance with NRMA and taken the precaution of more than tripling the insured value of their home. The extra safeguard has doubled their insurance premium.

Next-door neighbour Harry Freeman, 81, has had a closer view of Lismore’s transformation than most.

Freeman ventured to the Northern Rivers for Nimbin’s Aquarius Festival in 1973 and, with other members of the growing counter-culture movement that would shape modern Lismore, never left.

Harry Freeman says Lismore is “dying” as residents relocate from the city’s most flood-prone areas. Credit: Louise Kennerley

After more than 50 years in his home, which has been spared any flooding, Freeman can’t imagine a life anywhere else.

But the flood-ravaged town faces a reckoning, he says.

“It’s a dying town,” Freeman says from his front deck, a stone’s throw from the banks of the still-swollen Wilsons River. “It’s really in a bad way.”

As homes in Lismore’s most flood-prone areas are bought by the NSW government and slated for relocation through a $900 million buyback scheme, Freeman predicts a bleak future for the city.

“I can’t imagine what’ll happen once all of the people who are in flood [zones] have to move,” he says.

“They don’t want to leave Lismore, they also don’t particularly want to live up on the hill, so I can’t see any solution to the problem.”

He fears that Lismore will shrink if more people decide to relocate from harm’s way.

Lismore mayor Steve Krieg is doing all in his power to stop that from happening.

Lismore’s mayor, Steve Krieg, remains optimistic about the city’s future.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“I’m a strong believer that Lismore has a very bright future, and I don’t want people to leave,” Krieg says.

“I want to see people come and make this their home. I want to see our population grow and see new businesses set up, and I want to see Lismore become that regional centre that it’s always been for the Northern Rivers.”

Krieg, who lost his home in the 2022 floods, has become an ever-optimistic face of Lismore’s resilience, but even he has considered whether he and his family should stay or go.

“You don’t ever want to put your family, put your business, put your livelihood in any danger, so it’s very much front-of-mind,” Krieg says.

“You want people to be safe.”

Krieg says Lismore can’t escape the flooding that is synonymous with the town, but he hopes that mitigation measures being explored by Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, will give locals confidence to stay put.

“There is potential for growth here,” he says. “We’ve just got to think differently and make it happen.”

Elizabeth Mossop heads Living Lab Northern Rivers, a collaboration between the University of Technology Sydney, Southern Cross University and the NSW Reconstruction Authority, which is focused on designing a sustainable future for the region following the 2022 floods. She says flooding has become “situation normal” for Lismore.

Elizabeth Mossop, with Living Lab Northern Rivers colleague Dan Etheridge, says flooding in Lismore has become “situation normal”.Credit: Danielle Smith

“There’s no question that people need to think about these issues long and hard,” Mossop says.

“We can’t think of these supposedly natural disasters as isolated events that are kind of unprecedented and bad luck ... we really have to adjust our thinking.”

Mossop, who was involved in the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, says Lismore residents need a clear understanding of the city’s flood planning.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of future flooding, except it is likely to keep happening,” Mossop says.

She says while CSIRO modelling and research is important to establish what mitigation measures can be put in place to reduce major flooding risk in the Northern Rivers, Lismore residents need immediate answers to make informed decisions about where they will live, and how.

“It’s a beautiful part of the world,” she says.

“Imagine if young people could really make a go of things in a small place like this because they’ve been priced out of capital cities and even other regional centres.”

It’s important to “move forward and show people what the future of Lismore could be”, Mossop says.

“Because ... [after] this second round of serious flooding, people have got to be really questioning their futures.”

Mal Lanyon, chief executive of the NSW Reconstruction Authority, the agency at the forefront of the state government’s response to the 2022 floods, says a vibrancy had returned to Lismore’s CBD over the past six months. Then, the impending disaster of Alfred “put that apprehension and fear back into the community”.

“It’s obviously a community that people love living in, but that ever-present danger of what weather can bring is something that always weighs on their minds,” he says.

Future-proofing Lismore to a level that keeps locals in town is not a single-solution fix, Lanyon says, but a multipronged approach to long-term mitigation that includes researching risks and how they can be addressed.

“I think they can have a lot of optimism about what the future looks like,” Lanyon says.

Many Lismore residents remain traumatised by 2022 flooding that ravaged the city.Credit: Dan Peled/Getty Images

“We may never be able to stop things like a cyclone, or excessive rainfall, but by working together we can reduce the risk and the impact of those things,” he says. “Whilst the community may not always see those infrastructure changes that are happening at the moment, incrementally they are making the community safer.”

Exactly how many people stay in Lismore, and for how long, is anyone’s guess. Most are optimistic, but many ask the same question: Can they withstand the trauma of another flood?

“I don’t know how many more you’d have in you,” Alyse says.

If the water reaches Freeman’s house next time, he’ll probably meet it at the front door.

Freeman has no plans to leave. “I’ll be happy to stay here, no matter what’s left,” he says.

But young families like Doug and Alyse’s are eyeing a longer road ahead.

“If it came back in the house again, I’d think differently,” Doug says.

Like Doug, Alyse hopes their family can stay in the home they have worked to rebuild, but she knows it may not be possible.

“If it came back in the house again, it would be hard,” she says.

After years of rebuilding, Lismore residents are considering their futures in the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers city.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“Would anyone ever feel safe living in the CBD or in this area?”

The city’s trauma is not lost on Krieg.

“The scars run very deep after 2022,” he says.

“People have a right to question where they’re living – it’s totally understandable.”

But he remains hopeful of a bright future.

“We want to make Lismore the best place that it can be, and that’s what we’ll keep working towards.”

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