Unable to afford insurance against increasingly common inundations, many have no option but to stay and rebuild
, was making it hard for him to breathe. For two hours, his breathing grew increasingly strained as the floodwaters rose.
“It’s just devastating,” Linda says. “You’ve been inside, that’s our life, in those boxes. That’s what’s left.”Photograph: Tanya Slaven “I don’t know what I’m going to be doing. Maybe riding off into the sunset on my bike, with a bottle of wine in my backpack,” she laughs.Emmett has been staying with her close friend, Debbie Prater, away from the park. Her future remains uncertain.
She has no flood insurance. “I was a giver, so I never had any money left at all, with my kids and various things,” she said. Linda Bale and friend survey the cleanup operations. Linda and Peter are being supported by a friend’s family as they recover.The absence of government services is particularly bewildering, given many across the six caravan parks are in dire need of financial assistance.