Happy to be home

Finally … flood victims return after 15-month ordeal

A SOUTH Hobart family that lost everything in last year’s floods has finally returned home after an emotional 15month ordeal.

Suzy Browne’s newly renovated Degraves St property yesterday smelt like fresh paint and polished floorboards, but she still can’t shake the stench of rotting wood, mouldy carpet and mud from her mind.

The mother-of-two said it had been a long journey since she, her kids and their pet dog huddled on the roof of the carport as floodwater inundated their house and garden on May 11 last year.

“In the backyard, the water was nearly waist-deep and it came through as a flash flood,” Ms Browne told the Mercury yesterday.

“My dog was swimming around in the living room, my daughter was screaming out ‘mummy, what’s happening?’ and my son was saying ‘mum, we need to get out of here now’. It completely destroyed everything.

“The mud was probably one of the things that played a big role in the wipe-out of the house. It was inches-deep, sludgy, grey, stinky and revolting.”

Thankfully, their home and contents were insured. They were also fortunate to find a rental property close by while the clean-up and construction works were completed.

“We’ve been here for 20 years — to be able to come back and say ‘we’re home’ is amazing,” she said.

“Several times throughout the whole journey, I thought that bulldozing it and starting again would have been the best thing to do, but now that it’s done, it’s very familiar. There’s a lot of memories in here. I carried both kids here and brought them home as babies.”

After a busy day unpacking boxes and rearranging furniture, Ms Browne, her son James, 18, and daughter Ellen, 12, slept in their fresh and shiny rooms for the first time last night.

Everything from the clothes in their wardrobes to the linen on their beds is new.

Ms Browne said she had never picked her own mattress before, always accepting other’s “hand-me-downs”.

“You go through a process which I liken to the grieving process, first there’s disbelief that it’s happened, then sadness at the immense loss and then you kind of get angry about it,” she said.

“But we had way too much stuff anyway and sorting it out was taken out of my hands.

“There’s so many positives that come out of something like this.”