Leith Mooney
The Water Came Up Two Metres in Two Hours
Leith survived the flood in two hours. The real survival took two years of contamination, undiagnosed injury, and learning that help means sitting beside someone in silence.
Kintsugi Studio
Leith Mooney
Leith survived the flood in two hours. The real survival took two years of contamination, undiagnosed injury, and learning that help means sitting beside someone in silence.
Leith Mooney had watched the river at Walwood for twenty years. He knew its patterns, its history back to 1908, the way it sat higher before a flood. On July 6, 2022, the water came up two metres in two hours. By then, his father had been dead for seven months and his dog for five. The flood itself took ninety minutes to enter and leave his house. What came with it stayed far longer.
When the water receded, Leith found the septic tank had been pushed through every room. Raw sewage contaminated everything. He and Karina spent weeks in a tent on the roadside, then months apart while he worked non-stop to salvage what he could. The help that actually showed up came from water delivery drivers who arrived without being asked. Emergency services did not come for two weeks. Leith spent over a year running on adrenaline and pain medication, refusing to stop, convinced that if he just kept moving he could fix it all. It took him months to understand that surviving the flood itself was the point.
Two years later, Leith is still pulling things apart and deciding what stays. The house is repaired now, but it does not feel like home yet. What changed most was not the building but how he sees help. The moment that shifted everything was a coworker who sat down beside him without saying anything, just so he knew he was not alone. That simple act of presence, when everything else felt impossible, showed him what people actually need when the world falls apart.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
“that was the biggest rush in biggest rise I've ever seen in that River bed ever and that was about the point that it started coming in the back gate”
“one of my co-workers who I've worked with for many many years he just walked up and sat down beside me and popped his head on his shoulder and he just sat there that is the kind of help and support that people need not advice”
“I'd love to be able to sit here thanking emergency services for what they did but I I can't John I can't they didn't help us and it wasn't we never saw anybody from any emergency services until two weeks after the flood”
The hero, today
When the water came in so fast that I couldn't see where it would stop, I lost all control, and that panic is what still wakes me at night when I hear certain sounds or smells. I had to change what I told people from 'we lost just about everything' to 'we saved a few good things' because I couldn't bear seeing the look on their faces, but that was a lie I was telling myself too. The help that mattered most was not advice or a brochure: it was my coworker who sat down beside me without saying anything, just so I knew I wasn't alone. Nobody from emergency services came to check on us until two weeks after the flood, but the water delivery drivers showed up without being asked and saved our lives and our neighbor's horses. I spent over a year working non-stop without stopping, thinking that if I just kept going I could fix everything, and it took me months to understand that survival itself is the point.
Yes. Leith Mooney is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
When the water came in so fast that I couldn't see where it would stop, I lost all control, and that panic is what still wakes me at night when I hear certain sounds or smells.
I had to change what I told people from 'we lost just about everything' to 'we saved a few good things' because I couldn't bear seeing the look on their faces, but that was a lie I was telling myself too.
The help that mattered most was not advice or a brochure: it was my coworker who sat down beside me without saying anything, just so I knew I wasn't alone.
Nobody from emergency services came to check on us until two weeks after the flood, but the water delivery drivers showed up without being asked and saved our lives and our neighbor's horses.
kugi Heroes brings you the following flood resilience stories in partnership with Singleton neighborhood center and grant funding from the hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network to find out more about this podcast head to kugi heroes.com [Music] Au on July 6th 2022 the worst flood in 70 years hit the town of broke and the surrounding Hunter Valley region the community is still recovering from the trauma the floods brought destroying their homes and their livelihoods in this special limited series of kugi Heroes John Millum sits down with the community who suffered as a result of the floods and gives them space to share their adversity resilience and compassion it's only through connection and empathy that there can be a path to recovery these are stories of trauma and can be confronting if you find they have a triggering effect please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe now listen in as John takes you beyond the Deluge with kuki [Music] Heroes so afternoon folks uh today it's another kugi Heroes story of the floods from uh the broke Village and surrounds and today we're talking to leth moonin and uh and leth has got quite a story from 6th of July but uh leaf and his partner Karina is that that's right yeah yeah and you guys were uh caught up in quite a dramatic fashion in the floods and was aw some fun no and uh we'll we'll get a chance to talk about that but maybe we start Le with um a bit of background about um what took you to the area and uh you know we're talking about broke and of course your village which is uh walkwood which you mentioned is kind of was a little bit out of the way and not not part of a hub of activity but you were heavily impacted on on flood day so tell us a little bit about you your family and leading up to that day mate what what's your story so we've uh we've lived at Walworth for around 20 odd years um mid to late 2000 we moved out here into the old schoolhouse um which is it's an old school it closed down in around 1997 uh it was built in around 1859 I believe so we we lived there for quite some time we uh there was myself my wife Kara and my son sha Shan St longer at home you luckily for him we over's by there so he's good spot there you know so we've been there a long time spent a lot of time in the river bed there um that's you know as to do when you've got a young fellow growing up you spend a lot of time down there just fish and explor fish all that sort of stuff John um and then as you know as as he got older he go from doing himself down there so we actually know the river quite well um we've watched it flun numerous times yeah we've watched it being Dr where I could see every stick that was in the in the river B up to recently and um you know there's a few things I've noticed with the with the river and what it does prior to flood um and what I've noticed is it will tend to sit at a higher level for quite some time working up to it really the the indicators are there for people to take notice um I didn't I just thought you know it's going to be another come into the park and then it'll go down it's done many times since we've lived there it's something we used to because it's not an unusual thing for a fairly lows scale flood to go through that Creek is it exactly um I'm actually led to believe that the longb book is one of the fastest flowing scene bet River bets in the southern hemisphere now I do not know if that's true I actually heard that from a mate who got it from his dad and they're long-term growth resents right so there's a lot of local knowledge comes into it and of seen it flow very fast of seen it flow very slow in flow but the the indicator is is that will actually sit around a meter higher than all has done this in every every flooding in history that I can find I've got records dating back to 1908 for that River on our Monitor and you see the trend it it will sit at a m high around 6 months prior to these flight events if it's not sitting at that level the water table is nice and low so it sort of tends to Sak in pretty quick as we all know there was a lot of rain loading up to this which was after a drought as well uh we had some quite severe floods um prodct to it but I think the difference was is with the rain events we'd had and the storms we'd had loading up to it a lot of the gings out the mountains had been opened up so there was no restriction for the water flow coming out of the mountains and it came out a lot faster than they thought um but it also came out a timed perfect for the for the right thing to happen for the FL not for us so so just on that like so you know having um talk to a lot of people about the nature of this flood which was both you know flooding was not unexpected but the this flood was unexpected in its severity and it and its speed um do you think people talk about how this area that you know wab and broke uh river systems are um are catchments big catchments for the whole valley it is it is it is a big catchment um it's you know know you're looking at water that starts off at back in the central coast up on MRA Mountain yeah funnily enough was um I just get you know I'll leap a little bit forward here is the night we're actually flooded out of home one of the believe you work for New South Wales roads I'm not sure transport for New South Wales and his job was to go around and actually shut the roads off a s flooded and he he pulls up and he's going he play right not going yeah M we're pretty good I said but I don't have a great deal of water so roaches roach around and he he he grabs a it was a carton of water and he hands it to me and I said oh mate I said that's got to be a bit of a sick joke doesn't it he's looking fny gone oh it's kind M said where do you think all this water came from and what he actually handed me was is um it was some Mangrove Mountain Central Coast water company and we just stood there laughing like you know really didn't expect to arw CU we were sort of s in a bit of shock as to what was going on around us yeah yeah and and here we were 50 m from home on a hill camped on the side of the road this bik gives me this water it's possibly around midnight yeah um but yeah it's um it is a big cment yeah and your family is not unfamiliar with that you know like you've had a you know you you've had a relationship with the water and the you know you're in a part in the area yeah yeah I spent a lot of time down there um it's a really nice we it's very healthy um a lot people will look at it and go oh there's no water flop but it's only where they can see like either side of the bridge which is right next to our house on the gold Highway which is a cop Fighters Crossing on the on the gold Highway if you look down you actually can't see great little of water you'll see a little little stream on side and that's it but what you're looking at is where historical Crossings be so there Road Crossings were there and it's they've actually put a lot of grel into the riverbed there so it looks like there's nothing but if you go 50 m either side of that there some really good ODS and and you know like um where where you look at this it's it's predominantly seamed but there's a lot of rock there's a lot of different materials in the bed so when it floods like this it it doesn't change a lot where I live um you look in other places where it is predominantly seen it does change it moves uh I've seen photos down stream from our house I believe the 1950s and it's very wide and open and that was after two periods of flooding the 49 flood and the 55 flood and what they actually did was like opened up the channel very wide um that's not healthy for a riger bed it lead to a lot of erosion um you lose a lot of the bank it's now at a point where it's starting to recover this vegetation on the banks uh and it's held together really well and and on that how it's held together is the water path directly down from our house which is about 100 met away it hasn't changed it doesn't look any different really uh there's a few few logs and whatnot sticking up in the trees which sort of give evidence of a PL besides that you look at it and you honestly would not think anything's happened down there it looks exactly the same so that's it's really interesting so before we talk about the details of the flood tell us about how your relationship so you've lived in a Heritage School House in a you know beautiful part of the world yeah right yeah what was life like for you what you know what's the best thing about being being in that area honestly um look I can go down the creek I can take a fish I can just go for a walk along the creek it's one of those places where you can just go and sit down and take in the birds and all the nature there's quite a lot of wildli around there and I like to just go sick down there sometimes um A wise man once walk past me while I was fishing and it was really poor weather and he said to be young fellow he's gone it's not a really good day for fishing well it's not having you know really good day that big G on and I looked at this black and I said look mate I said sometimes fishing is not about catching fish and he just smiled and nodded and off he wandered and everybody's idea of doing something different my idea sometimes is just to go and sit down there and take a moment for myself prior to that look we were quite comfortable we had plans we were starting to downsize a lot of stuff and get rid of a lot of stuff anyway just had a good clutter from living in the one place for 20 odd years yeah you do tend to accumulate a lot of stuff from people going I've got this un like oh yeah okay so you know you turn your to on stuff you that night so we we started looking at downsizing anyway we're not spram chickens anymore um we had plans for the future we were quite comfortable with compl place it besides um you know my wife had had a workplace injury so she was actually currently work C that was really the only negative time and you know then we got to Christmas Day 2021 you know something everything's going along quite well and then um you know once again I was having one of those where just nothing went to plan I was trying to build stuff in the shed and everything I went to do just went wrong so I go Army and I have a scotch on the phone with him and just as I was walking out the shed I actually looked down the road and I could see some lights coming down the road well that's a bit hot on Christmas Day I'm in quite bright lights and um I all this this doesn't look too good so I sort of something told me to just stay in the ship so I just sat down you know nothing the moment and next thing my wife comes walking home she said it's the that's the place at the goate and I there told me my father had passed away and um unfortunately we weren't the last to know but other people knew before me so you know that was just another another period of things not going to plan after that nothing in life went to plan um we're now whatever it is now two and a half years after or two years after and still nothing's gotten to plan every everything I went to do something had go wrong even now I go to fix something in the shed and I go I don't own that tool anymore to do this job yeah um you know and there's a few other things that went on in between like I also lost me little dog who was about turn 20 on I think it was uh it was Valentine's Day at 2022 she would have turned 20 and so we lost her and then we got our B it's going to crappy let's celebrate Christmas each July my want it so I've got I'm mean for that and she run through the whole family everybody was all C to had a Christmas in July and then July happened um yeah once again another just another case of stuff not going to plan I think that's the thing with getting comfortable you you get a little complacent I think and you think everything's going great everything go let just could go down this path and then chaos comes in yeah so cha chaos in the form for for those listening you know as you pointed out right it had been raining and quite heavily at times right so but that's didn't we didn't get great o rain right where we live it did not rain a great o was just constant drizzle for about three to four months right table was up and oh yeah it was up yeah so the the when the water tables up you know you you the water can't go anywhere yeah so it came out of the mountains really fast and a lot faster than I expected yeah so the rain event early July so six of July you've been told right so you you as you said you you know floods have come and gone and they've been all been pretty good so were you prepared for a flood event that turned out to be significantly more um you know larger and more impactful than previously no not not at all um with the amount of rain we had I'm looking at it I'm going I've seen this before I've seen it a 100 times it's going to come into the park and then it's going to dissipate away like it always does the day prob to not BR into M's Place have beer and I got walked out I said oh hatching Tom M yeah yeah um and I I got and I thought i' better go down and have a look at it so I wanted the 100 or something down C it is River but I called the C yeah yeah yeah yeah cock Fighters c yeah I'll get I'll get there in moment it's quite a amusing story about that so I W down I had a look it was sitting at about 6 M which is still in the bank um I was still on top of the bank I'm watching the water FL I thought it just looks a little different was fllying just not like it normally did I I keep an eye on that so I duck back up the house had had dinner and then I just I go check it every now and then and I thought oh look out it's up to the March BL which was I believe around 8.4 m in March um 8.4 M look it was maybe 10 to 15 M off The Back Fence at that point nothing to worry about cuz it's still got quite R to get up to the the actual yard so you know that that was the March one I watched this River and it was when rivers normally Peak when they're in flood they will they'll end in and out and you I watched this thing I'm watched it so it's still there for about half an hour and I'm watching it at the March level and it's coming in and out couple inches at the top of it yep it's peaked so I went back up inside I I could still hear the water rushing outside as it rush through the grass out in the front Park and um I started checking on it sort of and hour Le and the first couple of hours it sort of didn't really do much it sort of sat around that March 5 level it wasn't till maybe 2 or 3 in the morning I I went and had one last look at it I once again I was quite confident of P but a Pay Tire and what I didn't realize these were the Russians of of all the different Waters gathering together and coming down now I think it was about 4:00 in the morning might have been the last time I looked at it I thought y we're good we're good I'm going to bed didn't sleep very well still cuz I still had to go to work the next day and um I got there I've gone I've looked at it it's all good off off okay and the alarm went off and thought I can hear something what it was was as the water had come up higher it got into some longer grass and I could actually hear flattening the lock of grass and as I walked out there I've gone oh this is not good it it had risen about another 2 Ms wow in about a 2hour period that was the biggest rush in biggest rise I've ever seen in that in that River bed ever and that was about the point that it started coming in the back gate I started running around them trying to save stuff in sheds and I I went to the first shed that was starting to take water which is my main sort of Workshop which is a 20 foot container in that coniler I've got a lot of had a lot of tooling um I actually like V hob rides so I've got some you know quite old small ones there from um 19 20s Jewels watches which are now longer than 6 in long um to you know some good size on so I had some really good tooling anyway so I'm I'm running around that shed I I can't save anything here so I was just putting stuff up as high as I could and I shut the container and I stepped out at container and ankled B water and I'm like this is this is really not good so I've gone to the next shed which was at this point quite dry the water was starting under that shed so I shut that one as well and I thought well the other one down the back it's it's gone so that was the three sheds full of water so I then turned my attention to the house and but this my wife was still in bed um at this point I didn't want to bother her out nothing and at one point I actually went and woke her up and I said look you're going to have to get up I might suggest you go and have have yourself a cup of coffee in a shower you're probably not going to get one for a couple of days and she she woke up BL ey and looked at me and said no no no it'll be fine I said you might want to take a look out the window and at this point you can look out our bedroom window and the the water was about 30 m away and just hitting the tower on the road at the front and she's looked at it she still thought we'd be fine I'm going we need to go have a coffee in a shower now so she went and did that and I'm running around sort of trying to put stuff high in the house and a lot of it was sort of no it's hard it's hard thing you know the water is coming you don't know where it's going to stop yeah but it was always so something helping me something gu me I don't know what it was John it was who was we part you're right so here I am I'm going around I'm putting stuff in a particular height I don't know why I just did I've going this is the hot so I'm going around bookshelves and I'm going all these photo albums and I put them on the next shelfer and finally enough that's about the heart went through the house so went I went through the house about me dke right it ended up going through you know I'll go back a a little bit shortly but um yeah there was just something guiding telling me to put stuff at this height so did those things that you put up that you went through did you you know were they precious things or things that you saw or you what was going what was happening to to be honest I it was a blur but there was just something telling me I had to put this stuff yes some of it was was Treasures um I got most of it there was even a um a chest next to our bed which um I I don't know how I managed I managed to lift it up on the bed by myself there's so much stuff I moved and I got no idea how I did it it just happened yeah and um wow so you know look I go back a little bit now like to as the water was coming in it was there's certain things that keep taking you back every time some of it so you get triggered by yeah yeah yeah um even leading up to this discussion we're having now I started having dreams again about it wow um some of them are nothing and other ones like um I had one the other night where I was running around trying to save everything and I couldn't because we were in a washing machine right and I don't know it's one of them things in dreams like the car was in there it's it's weird to things you see and here and it's sights and sounds and and what we we trigger the SC it's a hard one the the triggers like even the recent flooding in it's still down right now wa what not we've had flooding in Queensland flooding in Victoria recently I see that stuff now and I I want to be able to help these people I want to be able to go and go it's okay you'll get through this I I don't know how to do that um my thoughts are with all of those people I know what it's like I've been there I've been through to there is a way out uh it's how you get there is the thing uh first thing when I saw the Victorian floods uh recently was another trigger point and that's when the dream started again was was then and and I still hear the gurgling sound sometimes the night time um wow when when flow Waters come across the ground it displaces the air in there so any air pocket gets filled up and it bules out and it was it's like the ground boils it's a it's a weird thing um when when I was running around the house trying to get stuff out I was I was hearing this come through the floor uh the floor would be I guess near High you could hear it resonating as it came up approaching the floor boards underneath yeah and as it got to the floorboards it was a really weird sensation because what it did was it actually lifted the carpet and the the material under the carpet whatever it is it lifted that as well so as I'm walking around it became like a trampoline so you're bouncing around on the yeah yeah and it sounded like it was boiling on the underneath the floor and and that sound sat with me for a long time uh it took about 6 or8 months for that sound actually wor me in the night time I wake up hearing it hearing my sleep sometimes I'd only have to hear that noise somewhere else and it it would just trigger it and it takes it straight back there so so when you when you're hearing that noise right what what what is the feeling what's what's going on for you what do you um you know when you take are taken back to that moment what's the what's the feeling it's almost outright Panic you you can't describe it I'll do my best to because I think people need to understand that this is what it actually does to people in the long term um yeah so now if I smell a smell or or hear something it it comes straight back it puts you right back in there that uh when I was speaking to you on the phone the other day you you actually mentioned the word control and you you bang on any feeling of control you have is gone you're at the mercy of whatever's coming at you and with floods you don't know where it's going to stop it's really hard and sometimes it it can put you in a pretty dark place again and even just looking at back at some of the photos I can look at the photo and I can almost describe to you what it's smelt like and what it sounded like at that particular time and it's it's hard to get through yeah and some of the I will send you a heap of photos and whatnot um and hopefully get a video to you of the water coming through and you will actually hear in some of the video the bubbling one point there I I walked through into the laundry the laundry was it it actually it'ss lower than the the rest of the floor in the house so it actually got in upated first and when it went through the laundry there was like a little crack in the concrete and I believe there's some pipe work underneath there and all you could hear was the water just placing the air out of there and it was just bubbling and a different bubbling to the bubbling that was coming out of the ground you know once again it's it's hard to think back and then and then try put it into words but the the sounds do trigger things in people as as with any like that that happens to somebody there's there's memories there SS that sounds that trigger things and I ultimately found it's the sound of that bubbling really got me a lot uh and some particular smells wow so even now it's uh we we haven't had a great deal of rain since nothing really to report so every now and then you will get a a patch of run and I don't know if it just wets the right part of the ground but all of a sudden you get that smell again and it smells like that flood water um unfortunately for us it was not just flood water as the flood water went across the top of the septic it actually displac the entire contents of the septic through the house so we had a house full of ryal sewage which cont ated everything in the house and on that one thought of advice I would like to offer even if it's kid Goods thr away yeah it's uh you don't know what's being on it you don't know luckily for for us it was um it was our shit I can do it with me own crap uh I do feel a bit for the people that broke they had to do with everybody else's crap floating around and we we were unsure what to do there's there's nobody coming around here in your brocher going here's what you need to do the is the magic brocher that's gonna fix you but that's first thing any can goods any food in your color just R you can you can it that's one of those things this stuff I tried to save and stuff I didn't bother but it was uh we we actually did not find out took two weeks after the flood that it was contaminated so bad with e col light and we' been we'd still been living in the house for about 2 weeks so let's let's check in so the 6th of July you've tracked the water all night uh you've gone to bed thinking it might be all right you've woken up and suddenly it's come in it's and it's rushed into your house so you've run around and you put stuff up as high as you can or move what you can you thought you know you got to that point H what did you do like cuz there you go the water is what need deep through your house some some areas are are higher you you've mentioned that it's actually you know contaminated with raw sewage and you've done what you can putting stuff up what's happening now what you you're there what do you do after that at that point at that point it became a case of what else can I get in there and save I was more than willing to go in there up until the point that I couldn't swim in there anymore quite foolish but you know there was the only assistance we received was from some Community people and a couple of kns who drve out the H and cuz you're isolated aren't you you're like the area is shut is locked down with floods happening all around you as well yeah yeah yeah exactly like the main road of town was still over but it wasn't going to be open for much longer BGA was already cut off from uh flood waters across the PTY road so we couldn't go to BGA we couldn't go to jer's planes because the h River had blocked the Goen Highway the only at this point over was the road to town into s and from advice and what I've been hearing from people on the road um who were pulling up told me what was going on and they were telling me it wasn't long before that road was going to be closed as well and and even then like we would have been out of the frying pan and Into the Fire potentially because we didn't know what was going to happen to Singleton and and that's um you know that's that that's a main driver as to why we chose to camp on the side of the road we also had the dog and we were going she's not an EXO dog she lives off L you know did you um did you have any like do you have any communication to know what other people were doing apart from just people stopping or what we had none we we saw no emergency services um we we had nothing we had no information besides this water's in our house now and we're on the side road we we'd already say what we could we'd been back in to sort of w streate water push my old wb1 ton of you there we went back in and got my bike out of the house and that was a little bit of an odd story in itself that the only people that showed up to help were believe it or not our water delivery drivers who um as they pulled up or might Abus and swear words and told them to go away we do not know any water thank you that's a very Ed down version of what I said uh these blocks actually went above Beyond they went out in the paddock across the road um one of the neighbors he'd already gone to town and evacuated with his young son put his horses in what he believed to be a safe padic with a high point right well silly horses and one goat decided they were going to go to mound in the middle of the paddock which was very soon afterwards totally surrounded by water now these these BLS pulled up and they saw this and they were straight out in that padic one of them had no shoes on you know in a padic for a tiger Paar and prickle pear and cads and they were out there saving these horses and the go and at one point they almost got them out and then the lead horse let go and off he go back to the mound so I they TRS the 50 odd Motors back to this mound Lo off again and where they went past where we were standing watching this as they went through there they were neck deing water leading horses wow so they got these horses to safety up on the hill and then they turned their attention to helping us and to take out off those biks absolute Champions no asked them to help they just showed up and did it and these young M BS and they they were down for it something goes wrong they're there helping out they even pested us all night by coming back and making sure we were okay and that's the sort of community spirit that got us through it and I hate to say this it was I'd love to be able to sit here thanking emergency services for what they did but I I can't John I can't they didn't help us and it wasn't we never saw anybody from any emergency services until two weeks after the flood and it took for me I was having a bit of a reminiscent a little moment so I thought I best get on here so I jumped on the whole Facebook thing I think family and friends that been helped and I ended with unfortunately in our case I cannot help any of the Emergency Services as we still not have seen them right and one of my friends saw this who is a part of the the B Community Center and next thing we had help everybody wow phones ringing and it's like people are sh off it's like oh uh we we still had eaten properly yeah we you know we were living on stuff like b bs and whatnot it was only though for some reason when we evacuated I ched a couple of cans of B beans and sausages and bacon in we gonna have to eat something but besides that we had no supplies we had we had nothing it was all we all gone even medication their medication was gone wow um that's the sort of stuff that you need in in a nutshell you've got to have that stuff so for two weeks sorry sorry mate for two weeks you were camping on the side of the road the water went down right so when did the house become you know free of water well it was in and out that quick it was like a tide so it entered the house look I'm not real sure what time it was like it was sometime prior to lunch but first ended the house and it would have been around 11:00 a.m. the next day it was back down to the floor WS again and I was straight back in and oh I went straight back in So IED across the yard and went back into the house and as I opened the back door but it was it was weird so opened the back screen door I opened the back door and all of a sudden all this stuff started cling out of the house it's like oh there goes the shampoo on conditioner there goes pills there goes this there goes that oh there goes a piece of paper and it was there's we've got a photo somewhere of a piece of paper that was under our bed it somehow ended up on the outside of the screen of the back screen door now it had to get through one two three four closed doors to get to there so when I left I actually closed CL every door in the house and here's this little piece of paper it was a card to my wife from she used to work at preschool so I think it was from one of the co-workers like a christmy them and here it was just perched up between the the mes of the screen and the actual fly screen material that somehow was on the outside I I don't know how it got there I can't explain that I'm also a drummer so I have drumsticks everywhere there was even drumsticks that I under one batt in a particular I found this stuff in different rooms and I don't know what went on in there what was going on but uh something was certainly going on it's really odd to go I know that was there why is it here but as I walked into the house so I just go back to that so I walked into the house and I'm going this actually doesn't look too bad we we we're really lucky and I I started around I'm I think I can see most of this and uh so this was on day one we just went mad so I I got a bucket and I'm basically walking to the front door and I'm just reaching down into the flood water and dipping the bucket in and then just go on and bucket and mud you know because we had no pair um so I'm bucket and mud stuff and wandering around I had no shoes on at this point yeah yeah yeah you know it wasn't mud yeah some of those chunky ones that you pull out with your bare hands and you go that doesn't feel like mud it's it's it's not a good feeling to know that that's what it actually was I was cleaning out once we realized that that sort of contaminated everything we basically gone we we know de say the roof over oure we don't own this place we we rent it we have done for many years uh basically we threw all our stuff out the front uh we sort of saved the bed so we had a bed to sleep on and then I actually ran an awesome real estate agent and I said look this is where we're at this is how we been impacted you mind if I start ripping the carpet up so away we went the bits of carpet and B like here was Heavy they actually ass soon as Ro was open I around to help me so I was going sort of 24 hours a day at this point I didn't I wasn't stopping there was a lot of cine drunk at that time what do you like a coffee or T and uh anyway so the the la come out and he he'd do a full day you know full 12h hour day with us and then he'd go and I'd keep going and I think it took us about two or three days to get all the carpet out at that point they then sent out the vpa people who did swamp tests and that's what we found out about the COI and so you're you you've discovered that you've been working in a um totally bioc contaminated contaminated in site what happened to you as a result of that you and Karina that was not real fun we both ended up with stomach issues afterwards uh it sort of affected Cora more than it me I was basically w for wops I had the same gamb boots on I I don't know think I had socks on to be honest and I know the first time went T cambot off I was like oh that was a mission because I was stuck on there pretty good uh I had SS all over my body that would heal and um and when I say SS I mean just horrible looking SS so they gave me a couple lots of antibiotics which then clogged up me test time because you know could go the toilet that's what Bo still was also taking um some quite Hefty pain relief due to what turned out in the end to be I believe I ended up with three fractured ribs as well so the fractured ribs came about from just moving startu like sh off yeah and they didn't pick up on that toour a long time later I also spent one weekend I think I spent the entire weekend by myself I RI the gear box had car I rebuilt it on the bench out of three broken other gear boxes and then put the gearbox back into that and move the car and at one point when I was rolling around on the car I felt something tearing me groin and I don't know what happened in there but it's never been the same since something's moved inside and it's just stuff don't work like it was you know um so it's pretty cool on physically you know doing all of this hard labor and trying to save it then you realize that that the whole site is contaminated so most of your gear including musical instruments and stuff it's no good yeah yeah look I I lost a lot didn't really gain much by a lot of experience which wasn't wasn't ideal it wasn't the situation I wanted to be in the positive side to it I I guess that I tried to take from it was I had a lot of stuff I didn't know what I had to do with it I had a lot of my dad's estate stuff there well I lost 90% of that as well a lot of that I had no idea where I was going to do with it and it was finding out the actual eoli results and when I say eoli results we filed de it was predominantly car there was animal FAL matter we don't have animals by dog they told us it was stuff like chicken crap and all that sort of stuff through there we don't have chickens I don't know where that came from but uh it was quite heavily contaminated and that's when we started reassessing everything else and going all we're not s around this we've got to get rid of it it's terrible right the idea that there you are you've got stuff contaminated how um did you get support at this time once that sort of happened we were at about the two we in Mark where we uh began what we what we came on as the road to nowhere to it c um which was my nightly updates for family and friends that I was doing on social media just to let everybody know we were at K not really H for a couple weeks and yeah I thought people need to know me f was ringing off its Choppers and I I couldn't answer it because everything was wet and yeah you know we we had stuff outside we're trying to dry and it just kept running but yeah there began the road to nowhere toour where we were living in a glorified um K patril which became known as the tent on worlds right so the three of us lived in there for the well for two weeks and that was our first month of the flood so that entire time we were just well I was working around the clock the poor old dogs fall on your everywhere like a bad smell apparently we all smell bad but yeah funny story Johnny's people about walk in and and go geez it sells bad we would ask or just sell bad and I no no no it's WR and it's not all much later that you talk to people like go oh it's stuck we could smell it from Road and it's like oh great great it wasn't uh it was like at the end of the first month they uh they found Cora emergency accommodation so off Karina and the dog went to the the farm so they put her in a boarded up Farmhouse that was about 15 km away yeah so the Journey Into The Farmhouse went a bit like this I drive down the gravel road of the night time past the swooping alls then I out to cross the gate and the cattle M then after that it was quite a muddy trial and um I knew was only going to be a matter of time before I uh got bed in there but anyways as you go down the um the muddy Road you'd have to go past the killer bees nest then there was mud Splash Number One then mud Splash Number Two which was basically a spring on the top of the hill and uh then you'd get to the the old barded up Farmhouse which had been boarded up that long was running r with rents and snakes and bandicoots people don't believe me there was bandicoots John but I assure you they were there so I used to I don't know if I'm GL to say this or not but I used to sit on Brer up there mov chick to the um the racks with the slug gun it's quite a human way to do it if you do it right it's better than biting him that's instant I actually got sick of Da it so one night I think it was the first night or second night Cora had stayed up at the farm by herself I were just glad to have a bed a roof a floor and a fireplace uh so I was getting around 11:30 at night I thought I better better go back to the tenton Ws where I was now illegally sing as I'm going out I got got to the got to the spring on the hill and that was as far as went the old you just bed straight down to the shazzy and that's where that you stayed for the night it was at that point I trying to get the you out you know doing what I could to know I thought I got to walk I got to go I got to go to work tomorrow and yes I was still working through a lot of this wow um it's like 11:30 midnight I already go to work so I walked back over with a farm house covered in and I said be you stuck and she said I know I can so so we waiting Tred to get it out again still couldn't get it out I said look I got to walk something's telling me I got to walk luckily where they put was at the back of one of the cars and there was security up there right and something was telling me I needed to go and I needed to go now so off of gone she's going and mad I said I know but I've got to go uh we had too much down at the other place it was people getting around still things um so I hadn't get back there for security purposes and as I started I think it was about a kilometer and a half this money driveway I could see the security car coming down the road and I thought oh you beauty this is I saw him pull up at the gate I've G I'll get me torch out flash if I'm going oh still in the you so here I am I'm running down this road middle of the night and the only thing I had was a liar so I'm clicking this Li to hoping I'm able to see it I saw the lights he swung around at the gats and he checked to make sure that the the gates were locked and I saw him reversing back and I thought he hasn't seen and I'm clicking this lighter and I'm running as fast like which isn't real fast I got bit AR so I'm a bit slow out on anyways at the last minute I saw brake lights come on and he drove back towards the gate and I thought you beauty can see so I got to look back and luckily got another car to get work the next day but done basically the youth had to get pushed out with an excavator that's how well bulbed it was that became my nightly thing every night I would um i' pull up what I was calling home which is the glorified 10 on Wheels which was pretty fancy I reckon was that fancy John I had some mates call up one night and they've they've called him to s for some reason didn't hang around too long I was a bit F walking um I smoked bad I wasn't overly friendly either to anybody that was my own personal rubbish going on there with what had happened to us yeah yeah and anyways these dudes they suck around for about 5 10 minutes and uh they're going oh we get we're going we got to go and I joking when he said no go on piss off then you B are just jealous they I believe we all out of laugh and I like but uh I guess I try to hide a lot of what was really going on with you it doesn't work you talk about your like not being good at that point right like so it's a pretty heavy impact on you so you you've lived apart your house is is it being cleaned are you getting support for that how how is how is it how are you repairing your your the place you live right and you're living Karina's living out in the bush and you're having to try you know navigate between them yeah we um been married for many many years uh we haven't spent a great doal of time apart and this was a big learning curve for me had a Fed for himself basically we had a lot of support from the neighbors they fed us quite well for some time I I actually think I put on 10 Co wow it was a lot of take e like good take so shout out to the neighbors for keeping your well fed yeah yeah yeah those are the benefits of having professional cake makers as neighbors um oh jeez right some of the cakes I'm e were just delicious and he was made prior to this Blood I was off the suar and getting all healthy and yeah that's all window now I do like cake and they make good cake um but look to To Be Honest John yeah now I wasn't in a good place I possibly went what I would call full B nuts to agree um well I still had common sense though I didn't do anything too stupid I only bought one motorcycle because I thought I needed it um and that was simply to get in and out of the farm in case um the youth wouldn't get in and out of there probably not something it'll really Nery right door there I'm not going to tell anybody that one L but basically what I was doing at at that back at home at the old school was um I had a production line set up of pressure cleaners and different cleaning stations so anything that I did manage to save which wasn't much but it was a lot of the stuff that I saved wasn't it m uh saved a bit of Dan stuff we managed to save a few good things but uh I had a production line set up where our first first Port call was bleach I went through so much bleach so just put you know I'm up in the shares of bleach if you know if anyone's invested in um in Bach no problem anytime good um yeah yeah but I use a lot of B so first one was BL and then I'd have another one so then to get hit with the pressure cleaner then I'd another detergent I was using which was a disinfectant then the last one was a car wash and wax that just try protect and Salvage things CU I knew it was going to be stored for some time at this point we were told we could not reenter the house um as as what happens with rank properties and loes uh the second something like this happens is the L is now mulling void and T up M Ms and I think we basically homeless and that's yeah I didn't think I'd get to almost 50 after over 50 here but look I didn't think I'd get all almost 50 i' be a homeless person who uh had still had a decent job and you know it must pretty weird as I was getting out of the tent in me fancy blue shirt every morning and getting you going to work and um but the the house had to sit and dry out in the meantime I'd sort of going there when I couldn't I be Bing walls and pressure point I pressure point that entire premises from FL to soiling numerous times so if they had to come and swamped again it probably would have passed um they never gave that opportunity they just got here's the initial swap results you're out you cannot enter that premises they' let us go in there for about an hour at a time and it was We There was quite strict conditions around that and it was only to get our stuff out I kept looking at it down it's not right stuff it's not going to take long to get it out of here the one thing one of one of the rul like chicks actually sent and they had a ran this point where we we became homeless a month after the flight she said it's going to take you two at least two years to get back on your feet after this and I actually laughed at her she back F in six months it'll be fine wasn't she right say since actually let know that but um look this is a process it takes time and takes a lot of time especially when you're very stubborn and don't accept anybody's help and on that I I think I wanted help but I didn't so so people come to me and go what do you want me to do and I go look I don't know I don't know how how do you accept help from somebody when you don't know what you need to do so I became I don't know I felt like I was just sort of I guess run around buffing the brick walls do you think that that idea um was about really about your still being in uh impacted by the stress of the whole thing the flood right because not knowing what to do that's a you know that's you know a fairly common response after a big event or trauma definitely definitely um nothing could be further from the truth there uh there's no set of rules around this they like to say there is it's all sorts of stuff online where you log on after a disaster and it's all well and good if you log online you got to think to do that and you it's the last thing on your mind you the first thing that come to my mind when that water started coming into that house we got to get out of here and we're got to save ourselves because nobody's coming to do it for us yeah and even Corona has said to me afterwards numerous times that if I had not been she would have waited for emergency services before she left the house wow because we certainly had the bush fires in you know 2017 2018 that was that had quite a toll us well because we're constantly on Bush watch yeah yeah we saw R fire service regularly you would come around and check up and they would regular Drive bars around the community and looking at the the fuel on the ground and they even came and slap particular areas as a bit of a preventative measure and we saw nothing like that this time around and it's a shame because prior to this I believe in I think it was the 2007 floods we had the SCS come around and go on you know this is going to do this it's going to do that and I said I'm like yeah look it's all cool we've got a hill behind us um if anything goes wrong we're going straight up there not worrying about anything this time around it happened too quick 20 7 was a slow flood uh I can't remember the the height to that off the top of my head I do got to possibly no Ms at home roughly um that was quite a substantial flood that actually hung around for a long time it was a slow moving FL so the water sat in the park for days and days and days and of course the one day I go to get the kak out when I come home for work the water's gone uh which was quite a regular thing I'd do was the C could come up um get the kayak out not in this one there was just no opportunity it came in and out that quick and it was it was a she spory of it but I think it even caught the emergency services off guard they um they they say they like to listen to local knowledge my experience of that now is they will listen to you I don't know if they hear you I know um if it had have stuck at what I predicted um the water would not have it would have come into our yard it would not have entered the house yeah unfortunately it went about a m higher than they predicted and you know even that they actually have that data incorrect on there they think it went to like 11.1 M it's a simple fact of 11.1 m is when the data stopped reading us that's when the uh the monitor went under order but actually from my measurements using the 2007 datting point on the bridge and where High TI was in 2022 I believe it got to around 11.4 11.5 M the importance of that John is what's happened is is they have a particular data that says it got to this height and it got to here on the road it's wrong so they think at 11.1 me as it gets to that rout so it's 11.4 or 11.5 bit of the road up and it'll actually cut off the Golden Highway at that point it was about an inch off going open road just down from where we're CT we even looked at having to possibly move where we're already C you know on that first night Camp job but I'm going to give a tip here sausages and bacon on a care fire with wet wood and not I do the cook I couldn't get fire hard enough up worst sausages I'd ever eaten but I I love bacon and even this bacon was bad like I think you threw it away and it was like it was just terrible I don't think the dog was going to eat it we I ended up e Keen Keen b bs or something and then one of the neighbors up one of the other neighbors he actually came down around midnight and gave me a nice plastic tub for a chicken packet of biscuits it's a coffee and uh I'm a bit of a coffee snob job and I think it was only you know like one of these for Dred coffees but it was delicious and uh you know I stayed up all night watching that there too thanks to this coffee you know some of this stuff I can never really pay people for how they helped this out we you know the the places you go after that sort of stuff in your own head boy battling this sort of thing is first is it the the panic and the shock of it just keep you going um so you don't really take in what's going on around you and it's I found it wasn't to much later even now I I look at some of these photos and I go oh lost all we and it's that's when it's s PS home and you can still have moments where you just lose your crack and you got to go and sit down and when I tried to return to work I was starting to become I lost all my social skills I couldn't speak to people I spent a lot of time in that tent by myself sometimes the battle was just making a cup of tea other times the battle was laying down because I was in that much pain like me me bodyb broken worn out uh I then go try sleep I couldn't sleep so it's like I ended up you know I was taking a lot of valy a lot of pain kills just to try and shut my brain off uh yeah that didn't work some of the inappropriate things people can say I had somebody I was telling somebody about what had gone on with this afterwards and somebody had overheard of it said and they actually you know get out sort of sick hearing about it that's really not approprate but I bat my tongue um and some of the kindest things people have done for me is one day I've sitting down I'm having a moment having a really good yeah I was basically sitting at the back on a step at work me body was in agony I was exhausted totally totally 200% exhausted and I was just sitting out the back you know there was water coming out of the eyes and stuff it must have been raining you know yeah something like that something like that John and anyways one of my co-workers who I've worked with for many many years he just walked up and sat down beside me and popped his head on his shoulder and he just sat there that is the kind of help and support that people need not advice it was a simple Act of just sitting there with me knowing that you're not alone and then he uh finally half he he he issues that's well off you know is we we all have John and the how you work to that makes a difference he w inside so he's coming to the office and he's walked back out where I sit and he just handed me a card said if you want to talk to someone mate is black and I did um yeah I'm a black I thought I was tough enough to do with this rubbish I was tough enough to hide it and I think that's all I did was I I hit it I hid what was really going on I'm not sure if actually got to this bit later earlier on but um I spoke about changing what I would actually tell people when they' ask about how we went and uh and I had to change what I was saying from we lost just about everything we are and when I would see the look on their face I thought I know the change when I've say to people so I actually changed it to it's okay we saved a few good things and so did that change uh its impact on you not at all I was lying it was it was a lie well yes we managed to save a few good things it's you know you get you go around and you go we've saved all the trinkets on the top shelf but we don't have a top shelf to put it on anymore yeah and that mat it hard uh so we've still got stuff boxed up that we don't know if we'll ever come out of those boxes again or or still got sheds of musical instruments that I don't know if they are card so we've got you you're still you know working your way through this so where are you overall well two years down the track I'm still cleaning stuff up I'm still pulling stuff apart and trying to fix it and put it back together if it doesn't work I throw it out I thought I could save everything you it I can't I simply can't so it becomes a time where you've just got to go buer it's gone and some of the stuff that we threw out was quite substantial yeah and some of it not it's the it's the little things like um not so long ago our son come to visit and we were sitting around at night time and we were talking about not handwriting of young folk here they can't write very well they text everything so the handwriting appears to be a thing of the past and I made the comment well actually your handwriting was pretty good I don't know if was me made the comment Grand and he's gone no no my handwriting is terrible I said well funnily enough mate I about three paces and I reached on to the Shell in in one of the rooms and I pulled out his kindergarten first handwriting book wow and it um like he's in his um mid toight 20s now and that got him a little bit now even on that so he wasn't here through the flow event but he's also lost stuff yeah a lot of his childhood memories were there and one of the other things I actually found was and this one was more for me than for him was when he was really really young every night we go to bed read this dinosaur I found that as well and it was okay well the other book I think was a Shark book it was no so it had to go but it's funny the things you you managed to save and the things you can't and it's the things you can't when you find them that's when you go through that entire loss all over again and and it's not just that one little item it's everything comes back yeah everything you go oh shit this is a situation I'm me and I'm still in that situation now so I've got cars I've got to fix up I've got bikes I've got to fix uh I'm still going through trying to save tooling because a lot of it just stayed in the shed because there we went for survival which was we've got to eat we've got to sleep somewhere and we did what we could and I like a lot of food I don't really like because it was Fuel and you know like you just it and go oh that's horrible I don't like that at this point some of the Practical things have are moving forward but you're still there you're still working through the issues so what's the future what what do you think is going happen oh I wish I had the answer to that John the I think the future for now is to keep trying to save what I can and throw out what I can't and it's certainly changed my outlook on life a lot of things I used to think were important now are not and I I think the future for us hopefully is just to get through the other side of this whenever that is we we don't know when that's going to be because we're still going through it some of the um some of the things people have done for us to help us get through this have been like mind blowingly awesome and I can't thank people enough for what they have done unfortunately my short term with this is to try and get awareness to a lot of these issues as to why people like us got forgotten about I think I've using that I've used that as a driver to push true and maybe still mask a little of what I really feel um I still now get times where I get exhausted from it and it is overwhelming and you've just got to stop I went it was over 12 months before I even stopped I just kept going so I'd finish work and I'd go home and i' work then I maybe sleep for an hour or two and then i' go to work then i' go home and I'd work and that's all it was it was just constant constant uning it didn't stop there was always something to do there's still always something to do now uh at the moment I'm going through trying to save tool so stuff that's s in buckets of water for almost a month the thing that flood water does is it carries um not only contaminants but it's quite corrosive due to the electrolytic value of the water and like even the shazzy of my all you it's going to take me a long time to get it good again because it's just it's surface rusted some of my tooling I'll pull out like the little container some of it's in tins and it's just clums of rust that's you can't of recognize it as tool yeah I was very lucky with some things like um down in one of the back sheds I actually had quite a substantial collection of musical equipment and I lost most of it but one of the things that it was okay if the water had have gone an inch high I would have lost it was my dad's drum kit W which to me meant a lot and it's funny like with with all the gear I've got a lot of it didn't name anything and that drum kit itself it wasn't mine but it's what it was you know and it's that sort of stuff the the sentimental stuff that gets you yeah that where it gets hard mate you still got some hard roads to head just to you know sort of thinking about the journey so far and you know as we wind up the idea that is there a lesson in there is there you know is there something that you can take away from this or is it just about surviving at the moment for me well yes it is surviving I believe is the key to this I consider myself a victim of a natural disaster I'm a Survivor of it and I'll push through and I'll do whatever I need to do to get through this and that's how I've gone with this the whole journey the whole Road to Nowhere T has been about getting to the end of it which to be honest I can't see the end there's something else I've got to do might take a while mate it looks like you're on a road that's still going somewhere to Nowhere right so yeah I just how do you feel about the place you live now at first it was a little weird it was like we walk back in and it's got all new carpet it's all freshly painted and looks really looks really nice it's come up really good it it took n or 10 months to get to that stage and they did a great job of it great job of it yeah for a long time though it did not feel like home uh it still doesn't but it does it's yeah Hest feeling so you know the place carries a very doal of sentiment to me because we've had a lot of P life experience in there and looking at it now yes it's still home but we know that's the area we're in and we know this is what can happen now yeah yeah historically there has been floods through there before they tell me I I can find some evidence that suggests that I can find evidence that doesn't suggest it I believe it has been through their higher they told me 40 the 49 flood went through higher that I that I don't know I've read reports on Trove where it says the school is in six foot of water and I've also we in the same news Piper a couple of days later the door steps I'm not real sure some of theorical D correct so you're left with uh potential you know it's home now but you know maybe you're a little bit more wary about things that are possible so going forward oh definitely definitely yeah I understand that I just want to say thank you so much mate um you have offered such a brave insight into what's going on I really appreciate how uh well you've described what is just an you know an incred incredibly tough journey man I I just want to acknowledge that you you know that you got through you're doing great and um I'm really glad you could share that today mate thank you so much for that and thank you for your time John there needs to be more people doing this type of stuff to bring awareness and and help people and that's the thing if people want to help the help's got to be appropriate sometimes it's not and as I said earlier um some people can hinder I think that you know the opportunity for all of us out of this is know the stories the the courage we call it Heroes because everybody has everyday Heroes mate that's what we're talking about so really appreciate it lethan to you and uh Kina all the best mate cheers thank thank you John I just like to actually finish this with um I had quite a lot of people call me some sort of hero through this through what we survived I'm not I'm just an average BL that was doing what he had to do to get through it and I believe anybody would do the same to get themselves through the other side of it thank you again John and thank you everybody for tuning mate good on you and I I hear a lot of BLS who deserve Pat and the back say that and I agree but um you did a great job mate thanks man thank you thank you for listening to this week's episode of beyond the Deluge about the 2022 floods in Brook and the Hunter if anything in this conversation has had a triggering effect please seek support and find someone who can help keep you safe please share the show to your friends family and colleagues so we can help more people with their recovery from natural disaster if you'd like to find out more about kuki heroes and our other podcasts please head to kugi heroes.com our theme song was provided by Colin Lily thanks to Matthew Bliss for editing and production and to John Miller for hosting the conversations and most of all thank you to the community of Brook and the hunter Valley for sharing their lived experience with us we'll see you next week in beyond the [Music] Deluge only when it's broken only when it's broken when it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth Burns so bright only when it's broken only when it's broken take pride in those cries it's only for tonight and then you rise only when you're broken only when you're broken only when you brok to [Music]
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This conversation includes twenty years in the old schoolhouse, reading the river, the water from the central coast, a place to fish and sit, everything fell apart before the water came and three months of drizzle.
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