Disaster fatigue: how nine floods in six months have taken a toll on a NSW farming community
It’s the day after the ninth flood in six months in the New South Wales town of Gunnedah, and Ellen Howland is in her empty gym on the corner of Bloomfield and Chandos streets – just back from where the Namoi River broke its banks.
“Look, I’m a mindset coach,” Howland says. “I generally am very positive, but I am exhausted. I’m mentally exhausted from having to change our plans, to adapt, to pack up for floods, and then clean up from the floods, reset the business.”
It is a story repeated across southeastern Australia. Twenty-three rivers across Queensland, NSW and Victoria were subject to flood warnings this week. Communities have been ravaged by flash flooding. More than 230,000 insurance claims, totalling more than $5.5bn, were submitted for flood-related damage between January and October – not including the most recent flooding in Victoria and NSW.
For many of Howland’s clients, gym sessions are a much-needed social occasion, an excuse to drive into town, do a class and grab a smoothie from the café. But with the clients cut off or the gym shut, Howland worries about them.
“It is starting to take its toll,” she says. “We’re dealing with people that have had some health challenges as well. People come to us for that positivity and that community engagement – we’re not designed to thrive in isolation.
“So when people are stuck at home, particularly people that have got children in their own farms and they’re stuck out there, it’s really challenging for them.”
The latest evacuation order for the town was issued on 15 November, and residents enacted their well-worn flood plans. Howland keeps sandbags stacked by the back door of the gym.
“Getting sandbags and having to resandbag every time is just a chore, so I just left them,” she says. “The flooding’s going to be on and off until February.” “So the sandbags just stay there.”
It’s only November, after all.
‘It’s disaster fatigue’
Murray O’Keefe is a councillor and grazier on Old Bluevale Road, on the north side of the Namoi, his farm just metres from its straining banks.
His house is on a mound, and it becomes an island in the floods. Surrounding it are acres of oats, choked and muddied by the flood waters.
The oats were going to be made into silage for his cattle, then the paddock flooded. Then it was going to be turned into hay, then it flooded again, and now it will be ploughed in.
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“My wife and I are very lucky,”
O’Keefe says. “We both have off-farm jobs.” It’s why he has time to talk – those whose sole income comes from cotton or canola are out doing what they can during the break in the weather.
“If you’ve had a particularly stressful week at work, there’s nothing like Friday afternoon, sitting in a paddock with a hundred head of cattle and just having them talk to you and you talk to them,” he says.
O’Keefe’s cattle will survive, but the loss of this field will eat into the feed they have set aside for later.
Even so, O’Keefe remains philosophical, and knows that in comparison to places like Eugowra, Gunnedah has gotten off lightly.
“You’ve got to absolutely count your lucky stars when you look at what’s going on in the central west,” he says. “People have lost their lives. Here it’s this constant cycle of frustration, but that’s ultimately what it is. It’s frustrating.”
Josie Hoffman, a psychologist and the executive manager of clinical services for Centacare New England Northwest, says it all adds up – not just the floods but the pandemic, the fires and the drought before that.
“My concern is that there’s been a cumulative impact of disasters,” Hoffman says. “It’s disaster fatigue.”
Hoffman has noticed an increase in anxiety and depressive symptoms, connected to a world that’s become “largely unpredictable”.
“It’s going to have long-term effects on individuals, because there is this lack of sense of safety and security within their environment – and the environment is a trigger,” she says.
Centacare has seen an increase in their mental health services, not just from those flooded but also from people indirectly affected, like family members and relief workers.
Some are wondering if it’s still worth living here, but Hoffman urges people to work through their trauma before making any big decisions.
“We want people not to be making decisions in a heightened state, because often you’re not making the most educated and well thought-out decision.”
‘They’re talking about rain again’
Ken “Sava” Lloyd is a poet, pensioner, singer and raconteur. His house has been flooded, repeatedly, over the years, but he does not want to leave. Sava’s kitchen is covered with clocks and collected kitchenalia. The NSW emergency services minister, Steph Cooke, stood with him in his home last weekend, on the floor that’s dropped 10cm from the flooding.
Lloyd been staying with a friend, Val, but comes back to his own house as often as he can, and stays out of the sodden backyard.
“I’ve gotta admit, I’m getting really tired,” he says. “I said to Val, I wouldn’t mind coming back this weekend, and she said: you know, they’re talking about rain again.
“But I’m starting to pine for the place.”
Lloyd says he has sought assistance from the government but doesn’t qualify for any emergency housing, despite his home being near-uninhabitable and under constant threat. “‘You’ve got to be living under the bridge before we can help you,’ they told me.”
In the town known for Dorothea Mackellar, where a painted grain silo features the second stanza “My Country” and Dorothea herself looking out over the Namoi, Sava sums it all up in his verse:
After four years of drought,
I know I gave a shout:
“Send it down, Huey!”
Now I’ve seen nine floods
My house and yard is going gooey
But nature – nature’s hard to stop
So I think I’ll put up with the slop In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org