In Lismore the floods have drowned our homes, lives and futures under a sea of mud – what is our government doing?
‘We don’t know where to start. It is too overwhelming, not just what we have to deal with here, but the whole situation; our neighbours, our destroyed town’.‘We don’t know where to start. It is too overwhelming, not just what we have to deal with here, but the whole situation; our neighbours, our destroyed town’.It took three days after the rescue to get back and assess the damage to my partner’s home in North Lismore.At least it is still standing. Everything is brown.
That is the only way to describe the scene here. Sometimes you can’t even have a conversation because of the noise of the helicopter overhead, still rescuing people three days later. All around are brown mud, dust, broken buildings and scattered possessions strewn and piled across the landscape. But it’s the putrid smell that overwhelms every sense and we know it will grow in intensity as the hot day ferments the rotting detritus and vegetation.
Back out in the glaring sun, we don’t know where to start. It is too overwhelming, not just what we have to deal with here, but the whole situation; our neighbours, our destroyed town, the reality of a house washed against the bridge. I think of the lady who was clinging for her life to the window of her house and wonder whether she made it out alive. The police don’t want us in the city centre today as they pull out bodies.
I don’t know how we can recover. When will the next flood come – or will the bushfires get us next? I see on Twitter that the PM has Covid and is calling this flood a “natural disaster”. This same narrative is parroted by the government. But there is nothing natural about it. This is climate change in action, and pretending we aren’t experiencing a climate catastrophe right now is dangerously irresponsible. Remember, we are only at the beginning of the hockey stick curve.
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