When a devastating flood hit Aidan Rickett’s city of Lismore in northern NSW in 2022, he stayed behind to help — as he always has.
“I’ve always stayed with the house. Until that flood, the house floor was always above water,” he said.
Like many inland towns, Lismore sits on a riverine system which makes it prone to flooding. Thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged, , when floodwaters peaked on 28 February 2022 in the city at the highest level on record.
“We were just doing the same thing. Then all of a sudden, it started coming in for the first time ever,” Ricketts told SBS News on Wednesday.
“It was before dawn, and the neighbours who were slightly lower were calling out for rescue.”
At the time, Ricketts was part of the so-called tinny army, a flotilla of locals who helped with flood rescues.
As communities in northern NSW and south-east Queensland , he’s prepared the same boat again to help — but not until the storm passes. This time, Ricketts decided to leave.
‘This is the first time I’m not going to stay’
“This one is an entirely different game,” he said, adding the prospect of dealing with potential cyclonic winds had changed his attitude.
“This is the first time I’m not going to stay for the brunt of it. I’m going to take the boat and the trailer up onto dry land, wait for the major cyclone to go past, and then I’ll come back into the water once the winds die down a bit,” he said.
Overnight, residents in parts of north-east NSW, including in the Northern Rivers region, as the category 2 cyclone continued to approach the coast.
Speaking to SBS News again on Friday, Ricketts said he’d moved out of his house to stay with friends out of the flood zone.
“I’ve got my truck and boat out, so depending on how high the waters rise, we might find the need to put the boat in,” he said.
“But at this stage, it’s not looking anything like 2022 … it all depends on how slowly the cyclone approaches, and if it stalls, it will definitely increase the rainfall.”
‘Thousands of people’ heeded evacuation warnings, NSW premier says
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said Cyclone Alfred was about 160km east of Brisbane around noon on Friday.
It’s now forecast to reach the mainland at about 12pm Queensland time (1pm AEDT) on Saturday — at which point it is expected to have downgraded to a category 1 system.
While Alfred slowed down again overnight, its impacts have started to be felt, with damaging wind gusts across south-east Queensland and northern NSW.
NSW’s Cape Byron copped winds of up to 120km/h, while 48-hour totals of more than 400mm of rainfall were recorded in the state’s northern region.
Flooding in Lismore, northern NSW, on Friday. Source: AAP / Jason O’Brien
“Unfortunately, the northern river systems of NSW are already on their way to major flooding,” the BoM’s Sarah Scully said.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said on Friday that “thousands of people” have heeded evacuation warnings, urging those “few” who remain in their homes to follow.
Among those evacuating was Lismore MP Janelle Saffin, who says she had received calls from several residents who were reluctant to do the same.
“I understand how hard it can be, because you are not just leaving behind your shelter, you are sort of leaving your life behind,” she told ABC Radio on Friday morning.
“Some people would reach out and say: ‘Look I don’t want to go, I want to stay and protect’. What I say to them is: ‘Look, your family wants you safe, we want you safe’.”
Saffin said the community and local agencies were “as prepared as we could be” after 2022, but that the community is “still in recovery”.
‘Heartbreaking for our community’
Lismore mayor Steve Krieg also evacuated on Thursday night, telling ABC Radio on Friday morning that conditions were “terrible”.
“We’ve had wind gusts of 60 to 70km/h already and about 100mm of rain over the last 24 hours. The wind is the thing that is making most people the most nervous,” he said.
“I’m really proud to say that Lismore is as prepared as it can be. Now, it’s just a waiting game, sadly.”
Speaking with SBS News on Wednesday, Krieg said seeing the city under threat again from another major disaster is “really heartbreaking for our community”.
“It’s really sad, really unfair that this is happening again to our city. We are a good, solid community that look after each other. People still haven’t fully recovered,” he said.
Krieg said residents are “still living in caravans in their front yards” as they await repairs, while local businesses have done everything they can to get back on their feet.
“This is such a major blow to not only those small businesses, but to our economy, to the people they employ, to the services we offer as a regional centre. All those things are really taking a bad hit through these sorts of weather events. It’s really tragic.”
‘Here it comes again’
Lismore pub manager Tony Durheim and his wife Betty-Anne say they’re “facing it all again”.
“Here it comes again. It’s only three years since the last one and we are facing it all again — probably this time worse than ever,” Tony told Channel 7’s Sunrise program on Friday morning.
“The wind is unbelievable, the rain, it just doesn’t stop belting down. It is the unknown, we don’t know what is going to happen … and that is what is getting everyone down.”
Betty-Anne said “some life” had started to re-emerge in the town after 2022.
“It’s not just us that have come back here so recently, but so many other businesses that have only just opened in the last couple of months,” she said.
“Of course, there are people who fought really hard to get back straight away.”
She is concerned about the uncertainty and damage that the cyclone could bring.
But Ricketts said on Wednesday he is also holding onto a mix of emotions that arose from the 2022 flood — including gratitude.
“It really peeled back the layers of society, and money, and property, and peeled it right back to this core of really good humanity … I think that’s one of the things that natural disasters sometimes reveal to us,” he said.
“On day one, we felt that we lost everything. From day two onwards, we just gained new things back again.”
— With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press
