River Murray Recovery Stories
Stephanie Brookes · 54 min
When floodwaters threatened her adopted hometown, an Irish-born communications professional turned lived fear into clear, trusted information — proving that authentic storytelling can be the most powerful tool in a crisis.
Support services
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
When the River Murray began its slow, relentless rise in late 2022, Stephanie Brookes faced a choice that would reshape her sense of home. An Irish-born communications professional who had arrived in the Riverland just six months earlier to buy her first house, she found herself coordinating emergency communications for Renmark Paringa Council at a moment when South Australia had no playbook for a slow-rising flood. She knew her own house sat just outside the 1956 flood boundary. She knew what was at stake.
Stephanie's strategy was built on one principle: arm people with facts, and they will stop being scared. No flowery language, no false reassurance. Just clear, consistent updates about what the emergency team was actually doing. When a government agency placed flood markers incorrectly in town, triggering genuine terror in parents, she called it out directly, explained what happened, and rebuilt trust. She documented everything, partnered with local businesses and workers from Tonga and Fiji who volunteered to reinforce the levees, and made sure the community felt like collaborators in the response, not just passive recipients of information.
No households protected by the levee network were impacted. Stephanie's daughter was born during the drought that followed the flood. She is now pregnant again. Over twelve years, she has moved from Dublin to the driest corner of the driest continent, and found herself anchored here by something she never expected: a community that depends on its neighbours to survive, and a river that both threatens and holds everything you love. She is, by her own reckoning, a true Riverlander now.
Every story here belongs to the person who lived it. They said yes to sharing it, and we sat with it carefully before it went up. Nothing here is exaggerated and nothing is used without permission. Read how we handle these stories ↗
Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗