The floods of 2022 treated South Lismore’s homes with ruthless equality: homes perched high on stilts and those resting on slabs on the ground were all swallowed by several metres of water, forcing residents onto roofs and into attics to await rescue.
Now, for some of the residents who survived that flood, the path out of danger seems frustratingly random, and unfair.
Leone Baxter stands on the road outside her South Lismore home and gestures at her neighbours’ homes to illustrate the confusion about whose homes are bought by the state, raised higher on stilts, or “retrofitted” with flood-resistant materials in a $700 million government scheme.
“The house with the silver roof, it’s been offered a raise, or a retrofit, or a relocate. The house next door to that has been offered a buyback. The house next door to that has been refused. And the house directly next door to me has been offered a lift or a retrofit,” she says.
And Ms Baxter herself?
“Nothing, I’m not eligible for anything,” she says.
Ms Baxter’s single-storey home is already raised several metres off the ground. On February 28 last year, floodwater rose into her home, forcing her to clamber into a loft bed until she was rescued. Most of her possessions were destroyed.
She doesn’t understand why she’s been rejected for a buyback or house raising.
“There’s so many different theories going around as to how they’re making these estimations of what people are eligible for and what they’re not eligible for,” Ms Baxter says.
“And, I mean, I’m finding it very confusing. And as somebody said to me, it’s like pin the tail on the donkey. Nobody knows what’s going on, until the next announcement is made.”
The map dividing Lismore
The head of the NSW Reconstruction Authority Simon Draper said assistance is prioritised based on two criteria.
“One is the expected height that a flood would get to in the most likely scenarios, but also the velocity of water, which obviously creates more danger for the occupants of those premises. And there will be inevitably boundaries where we think that the danger is greater in one area than another,” he said.
Flood mapping shows Ms Baxter’s home, like the majority of addresses in South Lismore, has been given the lowest level of priority for buybacks.
Lismore’s Mayor Steve Krieg agreed that many flood survivors are confused.
“One of the great frustrations for our residents is that there were people sitting on their roofs, holding their grandchildren’s hands, literally clinging for their lives and their grandkids’ lives and they’re not eligible for anything,” Mr Krief said.
“Not eligible for a retrofit of their house because the mapping that all of the buybacks and the house raising was based on is historical data and not the most recent 2022 data.”
The water levels of 2022 are irrelevant to the buyback scheme.
While South Lismore was inundated last year, it was relatively unaffected by previous floods, so for buyback purposes, many of its streets are considered the lowest priority level – level four.
In another part of South Lismore, Chris Regan lives in an area deemed more at risk –level three — but he is yet to find out if he’ll be offered anything from the buyback scheme.
He applied for a buyback last year but is still waiting for an assessor to examine his home.
“They couldn’t give me an answer as to when they’ll come, but then you hear houses around you have been assessed and 18 months later it seems like I’m the only one in the street who hasn’t been assessed,” Mr Regan said.
Mr Regan’s house is set at the bottom of a small hill.
The home of his neighbour, Jo Groves, is higher up the hill and has previously been raised on stilts to the maximum possible height of 4 metres above ground level.
Ms Groves has been offered a buyback.
“It just seems incredibly haphazard,” she says.
“There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason. I don’t understand.
“Whilst I’m incredibly grateful and pleased that I’m being offered a buyback, I don’t understand why the highest house in the street has been offered one when my direct neighbours have heard nothing.”
Repeated phone calls to the body in charge of the scheme, the NSW Reconstruction Authority, have not helped to speed up the process.
“They just tell you to hurry up and wait and you finally start dealing with someone who tries to give you a bit of help and then it just changes to another person,” Ms Groves said.
‘Much longer process than people expected’
Mr Draper has said the buyback scheme will take time.
“It’s a much longer process, I think, than people expected,” he said.
“Because you’re doing something, we’re doing something really disruptive.
“We’re going into communities we’re offering to buy their homes, and that’s often very welcome.
“But having sold their home people are then faced with what are they going to do with them? How are they going to re-establish themselves? How are they going to re-establish their lives?”
Some of the confusion about the buyback scheme was due to conflicting accounts of the number of homes that could be bought, raised or repaired.
Residents were told that about 6,000 homes would be targeted for the three streams. Mr Draper said that was a “miscommunication from the NSW government”.
“We’ve acknowledged that in the past that was wrong. And I think not only is it wrong, but it’s very detrimental to the wellbeing of people in the Northern Rivers to have been told one thing, one case, another thing in another case,” he said.
Mr Draper says the scheme will actually target around 1,500 homes.
“In the first round of buyback offers, we’ve identified or prioritised around 1100 homes that we’re working through to make offers,” he said.
“We’re really quite a long way through that process now. And we think there’s probably about another 400 homes that would be offered a raising or retrofit as part of that process.”
He said it’s possible more homes would be included in the fund, depending on how much money was left from the state and federal funding.
So far, 632 buyback offers have been made. Of those offers, 128 homes have been bought by the program.
Back in South Lismore, Leone Baxter has appealed her rejection and hopes she’ll be approved, like some of her neighbours, for houseraising.
She’s still traumatised by her close escape from the 2022 flood and can’t sleep alone in her house.
She stays with family who live nearby on higher ground, or they come over and stay with her.
“And so hopefully, that, you know, in another year or two, I’ll be able to stay here by myself and, and, and then everything will be okay. But I’ll never spend another flood here ever,” she said.
“That is set in stone in my mind.”
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