Anna Horvat sobs as she talks about the rain and the chance of flooding. "Every time it rains we wonder if it's here again."
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The comfort once drawn from the sound of rain on the roof has been replaced by sleep-robbing fear.
Above the evacuation centre at Lismore, the sky looks threatening, delivering heavy showers and anxiety. "A lot of anxiety," Anna says, as the tears come.
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Her face carries all the anguish you'd expect from a flood victim but Anna counts herself as one of the lucky ones. Her home was not lost but her job at the Norco Dairy co-operative was when the processing plant was inundated.
When we meet, the co-op is paying her to do shifts with Orange Sky, a charity which provides laundry services and shower facilities for homeless people across Australia.
"Members of the public who have been affected by the floods come and drop their washing off. We wash them, sort them, dry them, pop them in bags and they pick them up," she explains.
A bank of front loaders and dryers whirrs and spins behind her. The dirty washing is the colour of mud.
Now, the grant to Norco, which paid for Anna's shifts at Orange Sky, has dried up. After seven years in Lismore - "a beautiful community," she says - she's moving back to Tasmania, another climate refugee.
"I'm done," she says.
The evacuation centre is being packed up. A squad of troops is busily folding and stacking the hundreds of cots the ADF provided in the immediate aftermath of the flood.
A sole remaining flood victim sits surrounded by her meagre possessions and three dogs. It's a week after the second flood overtopped the levee, five weeks after the first flood, and her exhaustion is palpable as she awaits word of her next destination.
National attention has shifted. To Ukraine. To the election. To Easter and holidays. To fuel prices and the cost of living.
But for the people of Lismore and the Northern Rivers of NSW, the prospect of life returning to normal is distant, almost invisible. As response turned to relief, relief to recovery, reconstruction comes into view. It's a phase of the disaster fraught with danger.
A steep, bureaucratic mountain climb, laced with supply chain and skill shortage minefields, from which many will stumble and fall.
John Hanscombe
Four decades in the media, working in print and television. Formerly editor of the South Coast Register and Milton Ulladulla Times. Based on the South Coast of NSW.
Four decades in the media, working in print and television. Formerly editor of the South Coast Register and Milton Ulladulla Times. Based on the South Coast of NSW.
