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Though Ms Grande has lost everything except for a few precious family photos, she is determined to stay in Coraki, gaining the strength to do so from her community and her family.
Her children, including her sons Angelo and Tony, who helped her escape the floods, live within a 50-kilometre radius of Coraki. They were also hit by flood waters.
Gloria with her family from left, Mark Harrison, Michael Grande, Joanne Harrison, Angelo Grande, Tony Grande and Raelene Feil.Credit:Elise Derwin
Ms Grande’s daughter Joanne and son-in-law Mark Harrison, who also live nearby, flew back from a trip to Tasmania when the rain hit to help family in need.
Mr Harrison said the community pulled together, not just in the Northern Rivers, but from across NSW and even the ACT.
A man from Bathurst hired a truck and filled it with work boots and gloves, handing them out to people in need, while a couple from Canberra also stopped by to help move water damaged items from Ms Grande’s shed to the roadside to be picked up.
Locals have been keeping people fed, cooking meals on barbecues and offering food to those still cleaning up.
One of the precious family photos Ms Grande was able to save.Credit:Elise Derwin
“It’s just, I’m not sure of the right words to use, but the unity it brings is unbelievable,” Mr Harrison said.
It was a similar story for Sarah Lavis, who grew up in the area and was renting a home in East Lismore with her four children before the storms hit.
Owned by her mother, the home had recently been repaired after the last flood that ripped through town, with decking and stairs recently replaced.
“We were in the 2017 flood as well, that just missed the floorboards, but we lost my brother’s furniture that was being stored under the house,” Ms Lavis said. “This time we moved everything inside to save what we could.”
The community pulled together in Lismore, Ms Lavis said.Credit:Elise Derwin
Though she was expecting flood water to rise to a metre inside her home, it stopped just one centimetre below her ceiling.
“I didn’t have contents insurance because I didn’t think I’d need it,” Ms Lavis said. “So, we’re planning to rebuild when we’re able.”
Ms Lavis’ trauma is still palpable as she speaks, her voice breaking at times, holding back the tears when describing what she’s coped with. She not only lost her family home but also a beloved pet cat to the flood waters. She also lost her job, with her place of work closing up shop.
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“It’s been an eventful [couple of weeks] but at the moment we’re stuck emotionally, physically and mentally, we’re just drained. We don’t know how to move forward right now.”
Like Ms Grande, Ms Lavis is receiving strength from the close community around her.
“With Lismore, when things like this happen, we just all band together and get what we need to do, done.
“The community spirit in Lismore is definitely alive. I’ve been cleaning out my house, emptying it, and the number of people who have offered food and water, cleaning supplies, even food packages – it makes you realise why you stay where you do,” she said.
Both women know they will have a battle on their hands in the coming months and years – not just because of their trauma, but also with the bureaucracy that comes with trying to rebuild.
Lecturer in psychology with RMIT, James Collett, said people often choose to stay in their hometown as their life and memories are there; it is a way to help them heal.
Coraki, which had largely been left unscathed in other floods, was inundated.Credit:Cam Hollows
“The basic reasons would be their attachment to the environment. It’s their lifestyle and life stories, their memories are all linked to where they live,” Dr Collett said. “This attachment to ‘place’ grows through community and is reinforced by people banding together.”
While people in the Northern Rivers were dealing with the problems at hand – that is, cleaning up after the floods – it means a lot of emotional turmoil can be put on hold, leaving people to process this afterwards.
“They will have a misplaced sense of guilt – could I have seen this coming? Could I have done something to avoid it?”
Dr Collett encouraged those in the Northern Rivers region to keep their longer-term goals of rebuilding in mind, remembering it will take some time, and to seek psychological help if they needed it.
The clean up will take some time, Dr Collett said.Credit:Elise Derwin
He also advised people asking questions, even on Twitter, to show sympathy to people who have been caught up in the catastrophe.
“They should always ask with empathy and always by putting themselves in others’ shoes,” he said. “I think the feeling of home – the feeling that the rug’s been pulled out from under you – that your home is not as safe and secure as it once was, we can all empathise with that.”