The Informer: Our attention might have shifted but the flood struggle hasn't

News overnight that Russia had bombed a theatre sheltering up to 1000 civilians in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol certainly warranted attention.

So, too, Vladimir Putin's chilling speech to his nation, in which he singled out "national traitors", working as part of the West's "fifth column", and called for "a natural and necessary purification of society". Echoes of Stalin's purges there.

Right here at home, however, is the ongoing agony in the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers region of NSW. Mayors of three local governments - Byron, Ballina and Tweed - were scratching their heads, wondering why their residents weren't eligible for extended Commonwealth disaster payments, while neighbouring council areas were.

Surely, it had nothing to with the fact those who are eligible live in a Nationals federal electorate and those who aren't live in a Labor seat.

Perish that thought - finally, after a week that seemed like an eternity, it was announced the shires in question would get the extended payments.

But spare another thought for stock owners and veterinarians in the flood zones.

A warning has gone out about a nasty affliction, particularly for horses, called swamp cancer.

Swamp cancer, or Pythiosis is an infection typically caused when a horse steps in water carrying bacteria, which can enter small cuts or abrasions and create itchy, swelling lesions that will eventually become tumour-like growths.

It's not the only nasty lurking in the wake of the floods. Lismore City News reports that "pleuro-pneumonia, hoof problems, colics and diarrhea, and viral infections such as Hendra, Ross River Fever, West Nile Virus, Japanese Encephalitis and Murray Valley Encephalitis" are also on the disease radar.

Spare a thought, too, for those left homeless. Not only are rents through the roof and accommodation options virtually non-existent, even the supply of relocatable housing is razor thin, thanks to a national shortage of dongas. (The theory is the word donga originated in South Africa and was brought back by Diggers returning from the Boer War.)

These temporary dwellings, often seen on roadside work camps or farms, have been hit by supply chain bottlenecks, caused first by the Black Summer fires, then the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia.

About a quarter of our domestic softwood supply, from which these dwellings are made, used to come from plantations in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, which were burnt out in 2019-20. Demand for remaining supplies exploded during the lockdown renovation boom so imports started to come Russia. And, now ... well, you know the rest of the story.

Believe it or not, there is a small silver lining in all this grim news.

A year after the urn containing his mother's ashes was washed away in a flood that swept through St Albans in the Hawkesbury Valley north west of Sydney, Michael Hedger was stunned to hear they had turned up after the recent inundation.

The people who found the urn floating in floodwaters posted a notice on the St Albans community Facebook page. Michael told the Hawkesbury Gazette his mother Laura would have found the whole episode very funny.

It's nice to find some light among all the shade.

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