Help Casey and Suen rebuild after Lismore flood

In the early hours of the morning on Monday 28th Feb, the floodwaters engulfed homes, our town and community.

[PHOTOS BELOW]

My family live in Lismore Heights, and while we are at higher ground, our hearts are broken for our friends who lost everything and for how this event has affected us all.

 

We’re sharing this campaign to seek support for our friends Casey and Suen in rebuilding their lives and preparing for their first baby after losing their North Lismore home and most of their belongings in the flood.

 

They are currently staying with the friends who picked them up by car when they could find a safe path to a road their friends could access.

 

Four days after they were rescued, on Friday 4th March, they found out that Casey is in her first trimester of their first pregnancy.

 

They are still going down to the house most days, cleaning up the mess, salvaging what they can, and looking for a new home – recovery will go on for months and years for the broader community.

 

This campaign is to support Casey and Suen to rebuild a new life, find a home where they can birth their baby and replace items that a government grant will not cover.

 

If you’d like to know more about what happened on the morning of the flood, here’s a story told by Casey (below photos):

 

We knew a flood was coming (we didn’t realise the unimaginable extent). We spent the three days leading up to it bringing everything from our downstairs workshop to the decks upstairs. Our floor is raised to 13 meters, so we never expected a flood to enter the home. As we sat down, exhausted on the Sunday evening at 11pm, we received phone calls from good friends who live in our neighbourhood. They were calls for help – the latest flood warning told them the water would rise above their floors (even though their houses were raised, but not as high as ours), and they needed help to move/save their things. We spent all night at various local friends’ households, make-shifting high shelves, lifting and placing belongings on more elevated decks and roofs. A couple of friends and their toddler evacuated to our place by canoe and kayak at 4am that night. The water was in their homes, would eventually reach beyond their ceilings and would even rise above the floor of a 3rd story loft. Our efforts to save their belongings had been futile.
 
At 4am, and without sleep, I anxiously monitored the flood warning changes and witnessed the water rising rapidly under our decks as the others were attempting to nap; We had agreed to reassess the situation at daylight. It was about 5am when I realised the water would enter OUR home. I woke the others and we hopelessly moved as many items as we could onto tables and high benches, threw as much as we could into the roof cavity, and tied as much as we could down on the decks with rope. Less than an hour later, the water was in our home.

Our friends and their baby evacuated by canoe first. Suen and I stayed until the water was up to our thighs; we left on our single kayaks by about 7am. We collected another friend (we had been keeping in contact with him) from his attic before going for higher ground. From there, it took us all day to find a safe and dry location to evacuate to. Many people, we heard later, were trapped for a second night or more. The water would rise nearly 2 meters into our home, destroying much of what we had attempted to save.
A builder’s assessment determined that the house's interior, where we had created our home, was wrecked. Suen and some volunteers have since completely gutted it.
 
It has been three weeks now, and while we are utterly exhausted and have much grief, our hearts are full of hope for our future. We have so much to be grateful for with a little one on the way; people’s generous offers of support and the community-led recovery have been overwhelming in the best possible way and is absolutely helping us get through this arduous process… from the depth of our hearts, thank you xx