I spent most of my childhood in Lismore. Floods were a fact of life. After several days of rain, my brother and I would

excitedly (forgive our youthful insensitivity) ask Mum if school would be closed tomorrow. Although our house was on a hill and we could always get to school, the kids coming in from cane farms in Broadwater, and those who lived in Woodburn and Coraki, couldn’t get to Lismore as the roads would be cut off by floodwaters. My nan and pop in Kyogle would pack everything up under their house and go and stay with my aunty and uncle. If the water rose faster than expected, they would lose whatever they were storing, and businesses in Lismore’s main street would have water all through their shops. There was loss and there was mess, but there certainly wasn’t the death and destruction we saw in February and March.

People that I went to high school with lost everything in the floods – and they lived in houses that had never previously been at risk of flooding, so they didn’t evacuate. One of the most heartbreaking photos I saw on social media, posted by my friend, showed her children’s baby photos covered in mud, pushed against a chicken-wire fence by the water that had swept through her house. All I could think was at least she still had those precious, irreplaceable images... When the flood warnings and evacuation orders went out again, less than a month later, it was simply devastating.

Of course, Lismore wasn’t the only town affected by the floods. The entire Northern Rivers area was inundated, as was South East Queensland and other parts of NSW. What they all had in common during this tragedy were the stories of mateship, community and camaraderie; strangers helping victims clean mud from furniture and giving them the clothes off their own back. We share some of these stories on page 40. We’re also donating 10 cents from every copy sold of this issue to GIVIT to help rebuild these communities. I encourage you to donate if you can; I know I will.