Two Rooms helps Gary return home after close call

You can just see the top of Gary’s two storey house above the flood waters.

When the flood waters started rising in February 2022, Gary from Buckendoon thought he had seen it before. He was in high school when the 1974 flood hit and didn’t think it could get worse than that. 

That all changed in a hurry.

“From about lunchtime the afternoon before it came up, I said to my young bloke, ‘This will be as big as ‘74, or maybe bigger. I’ve never seen water come up this far this quick’,” he said.

Still, when the news came from Lismore that the waters had gone two metres over the levee, Gary figured that by the time it reached them it would have levelled out and would possibly be only a foot or two higher than 1974. 

Gary called his son to come to his house, reasoning that it had never flooded and they would be safe and dry. Instead the waters rose to 2.4 metres higher than the 1974 level, and at its peak covered all but the roof of his two storey house.

“Nothing levelled out at all because it just kept raining and raining,” he said.

Gary, and his sister - who has a disability and is cared for by Gary - and his son got out when the water was about waist-deep in his kitchen. 

One of his neighbours didn’t get out so quickly and it was only a stalled outboard engine that allowed rescuers to hear the banging and hollering inside their roof cavity and avert tragedy.

“I was a bit shocked for quite a while,” Gary said. 

“We didn’t realise for a while, we all were in a bit of shock. But it could have been a lot worse. Life goes on.”

Gary moved back in straight after the flood but it was unsuitable for his sister to move back in for another five weeks. 

Gary’s house after the flood.

He received help from friends including a cabinet maker in Yamba who provided him with a second-hand kitchen cabinet, drawers and a benchtop, and another mate who gave him an electric stove. He fixed up his sister’s bedroom, and made the bathroom and toilet functional, but needed help for the rest of the house

The NDIS put Gary onto Resilient Lismore, after “the government was no help”. There was no funding available to fix his house as the other home on the property (his son’s) had already been funded.

Our Two Rooms team went in and got to work. They removed damaged weatherboards from the east and west sides of the house, repaired damaged framing, installed new weatherboards, and repaired a small patch of timber boards on the southern side.

“What they did was brilliant,” Gary said. 

“They fixed the place up to keep the rain and wind out. Lucky they were around or there’d still be nothing done. They said if we need anything else to let them know. The boys patched the holes in the walls and it’s like living in a palace compared to what it was.”

That’s what we do here at Resilient Lismore: we help those who need it. If you or anyone you know needs repairs to help you get back into your home, please register your details and we’ll be in touch.