Hi, my name is Jen Trotter.

Our family of 6 adults, 2 children, 4 dogs, 9 chickens and Spike the lizard have just encountered the most devastating flood we could imagine.

We received SES reports that water levels were expected to be just over the minor flood levels. At worst this meant we could move our cars to the front of our property on the highway and that the water wouldn't come into the house.

At around 11pm Tuesday 20th May the boys began to move the cars to the highway. They managed to get 5 up there before 2 were inundated in our driveway.

We tried to sleep knowing that we had lost vehicles but thought the ones up there would be fine along with our house - so wrong we were.

Our house is elevated approx. 1 metre off the ground - so when we woke to water under our feet this meant it was getting really high outside.

We decided to leave when the water got to about 6 inches in the house.

We had already put our chickens in the laundry with some high roosts and food and water.

Jake and Josh are boat mechanics, and we luckily had a few boats in the yard. Josh waded chest deep out to his tinny that was luckily not sunk. From here he picked up Jake and they got another bigger boat going - very lucky that they were able to start and we had fuel for them.

We stepped off our verandah into the boats - all six adults, a 6-year-old, a 2-year-old and 4 dogs, and made our way to the river at the back of our property and onto Harrington. The trip was full of anxiety; we were cold and wet and scared about what to do next. The river was full of debris and devastating to us there were cows being carried away with the current.

We planned to go to our marine mechanical workshop at Harrington to regroup and decide where to go from there (which ended up flooding as well). We arrived at Harrington Marina and tied the boats up and made our way to the carpark with kids and dogs in tow. Jake true to form jumped onto someone else's boat already moored in the Marina to pump it out before it began to sink.

We were met by local friends who opened their homes to us, we had to spread ourselves around. A local church group assisted with an Airbnb that would take us all including the dogs.

The boys went back by boat on Friday as the Pacific Highway didn't open until the Sunday. We were so happy that Spike and our chickens had survived, and our rooster was telling everyone about it.

Sunday began our cleanup. A church group of the most wonderful people that we didn't know arrived. They were like machines and moved everything out of the house and over the verandah for disposal. So many people we know and don't know just turned up to help.

The house is now clean, and we are waiting for it to dry properly.

We now need to re-carpet, reseal the floors, replace power points and fully refurnish.

Insurance doesn't cover us for flooding because of where we live.

This is where we need help.