Is this a true story?

Yes. Tony Hawkins 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.

What organisation produced this?

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.

What did Tony Hawkins learn from this experience?

The RFS is the only emergency service in isolated areas like Wollombi, so they get called on to help with floods even though there's not much they can do to hold the water back.

What would Tony Hawkins want listeners to know?

The 2019 bushfires scared Tony in a way past fires had not, because the chaos was relentless and nothing the community tried seemed to work, and that fear has stayed with him since.

What helped Tony Hawkins most along the way?

Community members will step up and help without being asked or officially tasked, and sometimes that unofficial response gets things done faster than waiting for agencies to take control.

What would Tony Hawkins tell someone going through something similar?

Tony learned from the Blue Mountains fire recovery work that people need permission to talk about what happened to them, and that talking may be the first time they've had that chance.

What topics does this episode cover?

This conversation includes thirty years in wollombi, dragged into the rfs, fire over flood, any day, the 2019 fires felt different, the unofficial response takes charge and nobody refused to help.

The Reality of Floods for Emergency Services with Tony Hawkins

Kintsugi Studio

The Reality of Floods for Emergency Services with Tony Hawkins | Kintsugi Heroes Stories

Overview

Tony Hawkins has lived in Wollombi for over 30 years. He's a captain with the RFS and now works as a bushfire consultant, training cultural burning practitioners and community resilience coordinators across the Hunter region. When the 2022 flood hit in July, it was his second major disaster in three years, following the terrifying 2019 bushfires that left him shaken in ways past fires never had.

During the 2022 flood, Tony watched the unofficial response from community members outpace the official agencies. An RFS volunteer brought a tanker without being tasked by the SES; local people showed up with equipment and labour without being asked. Tony used a Bobcat to clear sodden mattresses from the tavern and village businesses, because he recognised that without them cleaned up and functioning, people wouldn't come back and the town would hollow out. What struck him most was that nobody refused to help. People who weren't friends before worked side by side, differences dissolved by the need to do the job.

Tony draws a hard line between what agencies can control and what they cannot. You can't stop a flood. What matters is what happens after: the cleanup, yes, but more importantly, giving people permission to talk about what they've lived through. He's learned from post-fire recovery work in the Blue Mountains that many people have never been given space to tell their story, and that opportunity can be the first step toward processing what happened. He's concerned that knowledge about living safely with floods and fire is disappearing as old-timers pass away without passing on what they know. His message to communities is clear: don't sit back and complain. Take matters into your own hands. Ask what you can learn from it, and what you can do differently next time.

Chapters

0:00
Thirty years in Wollombi
Tony introduces himself as a long-term resident and RFS volunteer who was dragged into the brigade by friends and eventually became captain.
2:12
Dragged into the RFS
Tony explains how mutual friends saw something in him and pulled him into volunteering, though he didn't initially want to join a big organization.
3:09
Fire over flood, any day
Tony says he would choose fire over flood if given the choice, because the cleanup after floods is heartbreaking and things rarely recover.
6:03
The 2019 fires felt different
Tony describes the terror he felt during the 2019 bushfires, the first time he personally felt scared because the chaos was relentless and uncontrollable.
8:28
The unofficial response takes charge
Tony describes the tension between official agencies and community volunteers during the 2022 flood, including an RFS member who brought a tanker despite not being tasked by the SES.
11:29
Nobody refused to help
Tony reflects on how everyone in the community who could pitched in, including people who might not have been friends before, all putting differences aside.
14:14
The tavern had to come first
Tony explains why he focused on cleaning up the tavern and village businesses: without them, people won't return and the whole town risks becoming a ghost town.
20:45
A stranger turns into a good guy
Tony describes how a man who had a wrong impression of him approached him after the floods and said helping during the cleanup changed his mind about who Tony was.
24:45
Knowledge passed down through generations
Tony shares the story of discovering that a local man everyone called an arsonist was actually using traditional burning techniques taught by his father and grandfather, possibly inherited from Aboriginal mentors.
32:13
The church learned the hard way
Tony points out that the Catholic Church in Wollombi was built on the floodplain in the 1800s, flooded once, and then moved to higher ground, a lesson the community still hasn't fully learned.
35:50
What agencies could do better
Tony argues that post-flood recovery support matters most, and that people need the opportunity to talk about what happened, which organisations don't do well.
37:57
Take matters into your own hands
Tony encourages people not to sit back complaining, but to do things themselves and learn from events rather than dwell on what went wrong.

1 of 7

Fire over flood, any day

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 03:09

No, no, no. Well, I had this discussion with a lot of people. If I had my choice of natural disaster, I'd take fire over flood anytime. Wow. Because the cleanup after flood is just so heartbreaking. Yeah. That's, yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 03:22

And again, complete, you know, the water gets in everywhere.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 03:25

Yes. Yeah. And it's, it's quite often, it's never the same. It's, yeah, quite notable in 2022 was the council provided us with a lot of skip bins and they were just being continually filled with appliances and furnishing. Some of it I thought maybe unnecessarily, but most of it you just can't recover. It's easier just to throw it away. Wow.

John Milham (Host) · 03:50

So your long association with the RFS, how did you— you said you were dragged kicking and screaming into that. How did that happen, mate? Is that the pathway to signing up for community organizations?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 04:04

A couple of mutual friends who saw something in me, probably a live body. Yeah. Volunteer organizations always need live bodies, so.

John Milham (Host) · 04:15

Oh, especially in the country. Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 04:17

Yes. Yeah. So it didn't take long. I found that I enjoyed it and I found it challenging and I did start to progress in the brigade. That culminated, like I say, in being made the captain. But I ended up being employed by the RFS as a staff member for, oh gee, about 9, 8, 9 years as well. Following that, I left the RFS and now I work for myself in bushfire. As a consultant.

John Milham (Host) · 04:43

So you're a bushfire consultant. A, unfortunately, that's, there's plenty of work to do in, you know, Australia is offering, is a good canvas for your work. What, what is, what's involved in the consultant?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 04:57

Nobody knows what bushfire consultant does. That's like I say, nobody knows until they have to build something. And if you build in a bushfire-prone area, You'll need to call somebody like me to assess the risk and what you need to do for your sufficient accounts. That's not all of the job. The last few years I've been very involved with training as well. So I'm very proud of an involvement with Cultural Burning in the Hunter, and we've been training cultural burn practitioners. Yeah. And more recently, following the fires in 2019, some community resilience training, which is very exciting and seems to be very successful so far.

John Milham (Host) · 05:41

So, which is a brilliant segue into, you know, what we're kind of talking today about. So, you know, we go from the, you know, that period in 2019, 2020, which was just, you know, really challenging for a lot of rural communities through fires and then straight into a flood event.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 05:57

Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 05:58

Yeah. How did you personally deal with that?

The 2019 fires felt different

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 06:03

Interesting. The 2019 fires were very different to fires we experienced in the past. I can honestly say it's the first time I've personally felt scared. Wow. Because we never ever seem to get control of those fires. Typically you get a bad fire and the first day or two might be chaos. But you start to get control over it and okay, we've got a plan, we can work our way through this. That didn't happen in 2019. They were just relentless. The chaos or semi-chaos just went on day after day after day. Everything that was done to try and stop the fires didn't seem to work. Yeah. So that wasn't good. It probably took a little while to get over that. It certainly had an effect on me since then. I'm a bit like, well, my place is a bit like a plumber's tap, the water dripping. I should have done more fire preparation in the past. Now that's very forefront in my mind.

John Milham (Host) · 07:05

Wow.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 07:06

That's where it probably wasn't before, expecting the next big one. So we went from that, a bit of relief, a small, a couple of small floods, which were almost welcome. After having been so dry.

John Milham (Host) · 07:22

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 07:23

But then we got a big one in 2022. That again was very tense because I know sharing through messages with people, we were watching the flood levels and wondering just how high would we go. We were rapidly approaching the record. We didn't get there, but we got close.

John Milham (Host) · 07:40

Well, that's right. I've talked to, you know, a lot of people talk about the impact of that flood in some places, right? They said, you know, they, you know, the, you know, the records seemed, you know, seemed to be immaterial at some point. It was just above whatever they could imagine.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 07:54

So, yes. Yeah. I, I know I don't have a lot of experience with floods in Broke, but I was quite shocked at what, what happened at Broke. Yeah. Broke to me was always a place that didn't flood. Yeah. And here we are with water in houses at Broke and that, yeah, that blew my mind.

John Milham (Host) · 08:09

Yeah. So Tony, you've gone from a fire situation, a terrible one, and a flood. I'm wondering, do you put on your RFS, you know, emergency services response hat, or when it's close to home like that, is there something going on for you personally? Is that the same thing or how does that fit?

The unofficial response takes charge

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 08:28

So I suppose when I was in the RFS, I felt a responsibility to do what I could, and that's very limited as the floods coming. I remember in floods gone by before 2022, a few times where I went and warned people who I knew were new to the area and living in areas with flood. Following the flood, or actually during the flood, there's not much you can do. No. Um, 2007, we played a minor part in organizing for people to be rescued. 2022, it was pretty much just a matter of waiting it out until the water went down a bit so we could get in and do things. So as soon as the, the water level dropped in the village and particularly at the tavern, um, then it was all hands on deck, whoever could get there. So it was a limited number of people who could get there. On a personal level, it's, um, yeah, that's an interesting question. You do what you can, um, to help people out. We had a, a funny situation in 2022, and this might be a little bit controversial, I'm not sure, but there was a disconnect between the official agencies and the community. So we had one member of the RFS who was able to access the fire shed and bring a tanker down into the village. He was told, you shouldn't be doing that because you haven't been tasked by the SES to do that. Thankfully, he had the courage and strength of character to say no, because it's a job that needs to be done. Yeah, he did that. And then, and this is not a criti— it's not a criticism, but, uh, they're just doing their job. When the SES did turn up after a couple of days, they basically told us to stop work because they needed to do a risk assessment before we could do any work. I was, well, hang on, we've been doing this for 2 or 3 days. It's, if there's any risk, we've found it and mitigated it. Mm-hmm. So that sort of thing's a little bit frustrating. Yeah. But that's just the process. That's, that can't be helped. Yeah. Personally, you, you do what you can do to help. We had people that weren't on the official list. Mm-hmm. For assistance. Mm-hmm. So you ignore the official agencies and just go and help them. That's, yeah. I, I was very fortunate that a friend of mine had left his Bobcat with me for safekeeping. After I'd done about 3 days of work helping people with that, cleaning up mess, um, you know, like mattresses were the big thing. The skips that they sent us had, they're massive skips with like 12-foot sides. There's no way in the world anyone could throw a wet mattress. So Bobcat was fantastic in that sort of situation. Um, and I did ask his permission after I'd finished using it.

John Milham (Host) · 11:17

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 11:17

Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 11:17

It's easier to ask afterwards.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 11:20

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's what you do. You just kick in and help. And I think the most amazing thing is I don't know of anyone who refused to help.

Nobody refused to help

John Milham (Host) · 11:29

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 11:29

Everyone in the community who could pitched in in whatever way they could. And yeah, that includes people that may not have been friends before. Yeah. All, all differences are put aside and you just get in and do it cuz there's a job to be done.

John Milham (Host) · 11:44

That's, I love, I love hearing those stories. Um, I'm just interested too, 'cause you know, when you were sharing your post-2019 fire thoughts, you talked about how, you know, you were impacted by that. I could, you know, I could see that there's still impact, right? And that I imagine that impact is, you know, peace of mind. It's sort of, you know, psycho-emotional. How did this 2022 event How did that, did that sort of worsen that or did it change it or?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 12:20

I don't think it changed it because it was a different feeling. The floods have a different impact, I think. With the exception of 2007, which took us all by surprise, that flood came up very quickly and impacted us very quickly overnight as well. So we woke up in the morning to instant flood. That was a bit of a shock. But generally the floods around here, you know it's coming. Yeah. And you can prepare for it. And you also know there's not much you can do about it.

John Milham (Host) · 12:51

No. Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 12:52

Whereas a fire, it's also coming, the bigger fires, but you can prepare for it and you can do things so you can be busy and take your mind off any stress and worry, I suppose. Did the 2022 flood exacerbate that? I don't think so. I was pleased to see that the efforts towards building community resilience seem to be increasing. Again, not a criticism, but we're not very good at an agency level at building that community resilience. The 2019 floods, there were a few policy and operational decisions that were a bit controversial, and I've pushed for a discussion since then about that. And it hasn't happened. Yeah. Mostly because I'd like to know if next time, is that going to happen again? So we know how to be prepared for that. Things are getting better. At the same time, I mentioned the project up in the Blue Mountains that I've been working on. The community's getting better organized.

John Milham (Host) · 13:53

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 13:53

Yeah. Becoming resilient themselves.

John Milham (Host) · 13:56

That's so interesting. You, you mentioned, um, the community resilience and, and that happening. And how, and then you talked about, you know, friends and, you know, people stepping up. Is that possible that there's a sense of benefit from something as bad as a flood like this one?

The tavern had to come first

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 14:14

Oh, certainly, certainly. And I don't know where that comes from, the desire to help. For me, the tavern is a place I go very occasionally. I'm not a regular there, but what I could recognize is that Until the tavern and the village got cleaned up, we weren't ready to start having people come back into the area.

John Milham (Host) · 14:35

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 14:35

And businesses in town rely on people coming in from outside. If the tavern and the shops and the cafes take a big hit, that's going to impact all of us because if we lose those businesses, we're gonna lose the town basically. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If you haven't got those attractions.

John Milham (Host) · 14:51

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 14:51

And I've seen it happen in other towns around the place. You know, things just dwindle away. The school closes, the post office closes, the local shop closes, the pub closes, is usually the last one, and that's it. Ghost town. So I feel, I recognize that need. And plus it's just helping out people in the community. The people who own the tavern at the time are my neighbors. I know them. They're good people. You gotta help them. That's, yeah. How could you live with yourself if you didn't?

John Milham (Host) · 15:20

Well, you know, yeah, that's A great thing about the choices you've made to serve your community. So you sounded almost like, you know, a surprised, pleased kind of attitude that so many people reached out. Did that surprise you?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 15:36

No, because that's how Wallumbi is. That's the same thing happened in 2019. Those policy and operation decisions that were being made that the RFS wouldn't go to certain areas, the community just said, well, we will. So people threw IBC cubes in the back of their utes and a pump, and they went to the places. That's good and bad. That's great because they did actually save houses. It worries me a lot of the people, uh, were putting themselves at risk. But I think that, that concern is being addressed now. I know the RFS are, um, working towards working with private firefighting people. Wouldn't have started the RFS in the very beginning. It was the community getting—

John Milham (Host) · 16:18

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My, my brother, you know, he's north in those fires. They were fighting and they'd just turn up at a bloke's property and just random young people from the stranger area. He thought it was one of the most amazing things. The community would, would reach out.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 16:37

Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 16:37

To that end, it's interesting you talk about, you know, like risk it's almost an obstacle to overcome in some ways, you know, from a, from an institutional point of view. How, how does that play out from your observation?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 16:50

It's interesting. So I had a friend down in Bravewood in 2019 and they were struggling for help within the RFS. They just didn't have enough people and they were literally burning them out. So I went down for a week to give him a hand with the RFS. And what I got to see was, uh, an area where this connection between the RFS and the private people, the farmers and all of that, really worked really well. They worked together. Mm-hmm. They'd organized their communications so they could talk to each other. They, they did actually talk to each other and tell each other what they were, what they were doing or where they were. That was ideal. I know that's happened in other places like Kangaroo Island. Yeah. Very similar experience over there. But that's not universal across the state. That's what I think the RFS are trying to work towards. So the, the only way you can mitigate the risk is to make sure people have got half decent equipment is one thing, I suppose. But also that they communicate, that the RFS know where everybody is, or at least have an idea so that you don't do something that might endanger those private guides. It's happening. It's the, process. And like I say, it's, we're going back, reinventing the wheel. We're coming back full circle to where the RFS started, which amuses and delights me.

John Milham (Host) · 18:07

Yeah, that's great.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 18:08

It's certainly great.

John Milham (Host) · 18:10

So interesting that the RFS played such a core role in a flood event, right? And you said when the SES came in, there was some sort of, you know, a renegotiation of what was going on that you were doing for support. How did that play out?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 18:25

They came in quite strong saying that everything must stop until we take control. I think they got a fairly strong message back. Well, no, you're in the way. Happy for you to help, but, um, yeah, we're already doing it. Grab, grab a, a broom, a shovel, pitch in. And to their credit, they didn't, um, exert any authority once they got the message.

John Milham (Host) · 18:49

So, right. And, and the ultimate sort of negotiation, right? And ongoing on over the overlaid by a, you know, the fact that there are people who have lost homes, possessions, all of that scene. So, you know, how did that feel when you started working together? What was, you know, was there a sense of accomplishment or a sense of desperation or sadness? What was that feel?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 19:11

There's certainly sadness, especially for people who, you know, probably don't have insurance and things like that. You're trying to help them out. As best you can and save whatever you can. But ultimately it's just a job. That's a, that's a big job. Cleaning up after a flood is a terrible hard job. I think mostly it's, it's probably quite good that you're working hard. You don't get time to get sad or have emotions. Mm-hmm. Do the job, get it done, and then at the end, thank God that's over. That's a job well done.

John Milham (Host) · 19:45

Wow. When you, think about it back now, what was the best thing about, you know, the community coming together? What did you do that, you know, that really encouraged you?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 19:57

Oh, certainly that, that community spirit. Like I say, it was hard work, but gee, we'd have a couple of laughs along the way. Yeah. There's always a joke to be had along the way just to keep people going. So it builds those relationships. Like I say, some people have differences. Which they normally wouldn't talk to each other. Here they are having a joke with each other. I know of one fella in particular that only about 18 months ago, he came up to me and said, you know, I'd always been told you're a bit of a bugger. I'm not saying bugger. You're actually a good guy. And see, that made me pleased that he'd had a wrong impression of me. And then after seeing the way I'd helped out, during the floods. Yeah, it changed his opinion of me and probably my opinion of other people has probably changed too.

A stranger turns into a good guy

John Milham (Host) · 20:45

What is it about that sort of situation that makes that happen?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 20:50

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I know during the bushfires we had a communication network between us in the, we call it the mosquito fleet. I dunno whether you've heard that term before. I think it came from World War II and it was a collection of misfit ships and boats, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the mosquito fleet now is all those utes with a cube on the back and a pump, and they're buzzing around annoyingly, right? Yeah. So you would get a call over the UHF radio, so-and-so's place, or via Facebook Messenger was a great way to communicate, that so-and-so's place, the fire's there, they need help. And you don't really question who it is. You just go. Then when you turn up at someone's place and they're not expecting you to turn up because, and you get a, you know, they get a shock and you get a nice reaction. That's gratifying. That's, I don't know that it, we're talking about hatred or anything like that, but I think sometimes people get an impression of people and who they are without knowing them.

John Milham (Host) · 21:54

Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 21:55

And when something happens like that where they just turn up and help without being asked. That changes people's opinions.

John Milham (Host) · 22:02

That's nice, isn't it?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 22:03

Yeah. Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 22:05

How do you feel about your community after all of these events?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 22:09

Uh, good. They're very good. And knowing that when the chips are down, that people will chip in to help. That's great.

John Milham (Host) · 22:18

Tony, the idea of, um, you know, going through something like this and must, uh, give you a sense of from a professional point of view or from somebody who is, you know, has an idea about supporting people long-term. Let's give you some idea about what happens. Like you get an understanding of these events. What did you learn from this one?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 22:40

From this one? That's a good question. I know from the work I've been doing in the Blue Mountains, I've learned as much as I've taught. There've been weekend events and 3-hour drive on the way home and I come home from those usually quite excited and just amazed at the stories I've heard. And the initial plan was to talk at people and tell them how to prepare, to prepare their homes and work out their plans. But what happened and wasn't expected was we were unwittingly giving people the opportunity to talk. And I think for a lot of them it's the first time they've been sort of given that permission to just tell their story. Yeah. Let it all out. Yeah. And some of the stories have been quite amazing. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah. And you can, you can physically see and hear the emotion that's being let out. That's great. Um, with the floods here, uh, I don't know that that's happened so much. Um, there have been some meetings post-flood, whether people have had the opportunity to have that vent of emotions, or even whether that was necessary so much. I, I don't know of too many people who were really dramatically affected to that point. I'm sure if things had gone badly and we've had a loss of life or something like that, things would be very different. Thankfully that didn't happen. I know in the past though, in, I'm talking about distant past, there have been flood events where people have lost their lives around here and that's had a very long-lasting impact. Yeah. You know, things that happened 30 years ago, people still talk about occasionally. Yeah. They haven't forgotten that. Yeah. It's, floods are these funny things. They're, generally come up slowly, go down slowly. There's not that adrenaline rush of panic with them. Yeah, different events.

Knowledge passed down through generations

John Milham (Host) · 24:45

What do you think will be the long-term impact of this flood?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 24:49

That's a good question. For the people who live here all the time, and Wallaby is a funny place, so it's, there's a permanent population. There's a lot of people who have weekenders here. Yeah. And they generally come from Sydney. The permanent population are probably used to it. It's just another flood. The weekender population concern me a bit because they don't have that knowledge and experience of floods on a reasonably regular basis. For them, yeah, I think the effect would be quite varied. I'm sure that some people just thought, I'm not going through that again, and just sold up and left. Other people probably in that thing of, oh, that'll never happen again. We're okay. And just pretend it never happened.

John Milham (Host) · 25:37

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 25:37

Yeah. The long-term impact is hard to say.

John Milham (Host) · 25:40

What, as a, um, as a community member and a, a member of in, uh, with some standing and, you know, a, a desire, you know, a track record of supporting that community, what would you be telling the community to do now? To prepare both to process the last event and prepare for the next.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 26:00

When I first came here, we, uh, was in a period where there were a lot of small floods. Mm-hmm. And it was quite common for people who, I, I call it living on the wrong side of the creek, where to access their house, they had to get across the creek.

John Milham (Host) · 26:14

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 26:14

Uh, it was really common for those people to have a deep freeze. Mm-hmm. And lots of food stocked in, in the deep freeze cuz they knew they could be flooded in for 3 or 4 days and not be able to get out. That was a great thing to do. They were self-sufficient and no one had to worry about them too much. They were okay until the water went down. That seems to have gone. That idea has been lost. And so we're now in this situation where quite often people, you know, 12 hours flooded in and they've run out of food. It's, and they, they need assistance.

John Milham (Host) · 26:45

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 26:46

Um, that would be good if people got back into that habit, recognized the risk. And the impact of the floods moving forward. People moving into the area, I would love it if they talk to their old-time neighbors. Yeah. Yeah. About what's happened in the past. I'd like to think that happens, but I'm, I'm pretty sure at the same time it doesn't always happen.

John Milham (Host) · 27:09

No. Be inspired to organize a, you know, around the fire night, share the wisdoms of the, of the local legends.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 27:15

Yeah. Look at, unfortunately we're losing that experience. The old timers, and not that I'm that young, but I mean the real old timers, we're losing them and that experience is disappearing.

John Milham (Host) · 27:30

So it's interesting that you were involved in, say, capturing and handing on some of the cultural understanding around fire management. And you were talking about community resilience. Do you think there's more in that to help our rural communities as they seem to be coming increasingly under stress and threat?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 27:52

Oh, certainly. I've been to university and have a master's degree. I learned a lot through that, but just as much as that, I've had great mentors who have taught me things and learning from them is, is so valuable. We've lost a couple of them before I got a chance to drag all their knowledge out of them, which is incredibly disappointing.

John Milham (Host) · 28:14

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 28:15

That knowledge is Uh, it's so important. Um, and there is a link to the cultural burning stuff that, um, we've got a local here who, uh, for a long time was just known as the local arsonist. He would just light up whatever he felt like and whenever he felt like and didn't tell anyone. He was the bane of the RFS's life. I'd spoke to him about 6 months ago and we had a bit of a chat and I was asking him, because over time I'd realized he actually knew what he was doing. He was doing things, burning in a way that was very similar to the cultural burning, traditional techniques. So I had a chat with him and I said, who taught you how to burn? And, uh, he said, oh, my father. Well, who taught him? My grandfather. Okay. Where did he learn? I don't know. He was the first one here. Did you have many Aboriginal men working on the farm? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were. Oh, wow. Grandfather. Yeah. Do you think that they might have taught your grandfather how to burn? Well, yeah, they might have. Yeah. And they're, yeah, it all comes together. That's, those techniques were passed down. But again, it's those mentors. If you haven't got them passing on the, the knowledge, whether it be cultural knowledge or Western knowledge. I've been taught things about fire by people who aren't recognized firefighters and fire experts. Different techniques that have been taught to them by their fathers and grandfathers. Fantastic, fantastic ways to do things. Okay. They tried them and they work. Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 29:53

Wow. That's great. It's interesting too, because I, you know, talking to people in this area around the flood experience, some of the individuals talked about things that were done some time ago that seem to have an impact on mitigating flood outcomes. And I wonder if that's, there's not some level of knowledge in the land and past practices that might be resurrected for that as well. Things like, you know, dredging or, you know, the idea of, you know, scrub management on the side of rivers and things like that.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 30:28

The Wallumbi Brooks are very interesting. River system. It's, I've got a book down in the house. It was written by a couple of people from Newcastle Uni about 20, 25 years ago about the Wallumbi Brook. And one thing that stood out in that for me was a scientific explanation of how the flooding works. And wow. Don't, don't quote me on this, but it was to do with the maximum flood level. So the, the 1 in 100 year flood level on the one in 500-year flood level. And the 500-year flood level is about 2 or 3 times the one in 100-year flood level, except for 2 places in the world. And that's the Wollombi Brook and a river in China where it's about 12 times. Wow. So it, it's a very, it's a massive catchment that goes into very small river systems.

John Milham (Host) · 31:19

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 31:19

Yeah. Right. So when we get floods, we really get floods. You know, I laugh when people talk about when bridges get replaced around here, they talk about let's raise the bridge by a meter. Well, the bridge is 20 meters underwater. That's not gonna make any difference. Yeah. Yeah, so there's not much to mitigate floods around here. When we get them, we really, really do get them. Yeah, well. They can move fast and they're very deep. Mitigating it. We need to learn the lessons of the past. The Catholic Church in Wallumbi, I think it's the second oldest church, Catholic church in Australia. Wow. It was originally built down on the banks of the creek in about 1830, 40, 50, somewhere around there. One big flood and they realized they'd made a mistake and they pulled the whole thing apart and re-erected it further up on the hill. So many times we haven't learned that lesson. Don't build down in the floodplain. Yeah. People are still doing it.

The church learned the hard way

John Milham (Host) · 32:13

Well, you talked about the, um, You know, the iconic Wollombi Tavern, which, you know, is so important to the image and commercial success of the town. And of course it was massively impacted by this flood. So, you know, you said you got down to help out.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 32:32

What was it like? So I was there in 2007, and at that point the water came up to the bar level and we were able to still wade in. And carry a lot of things out.

John Milham (Host) · 32:43

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 32:44

Booze, cigarettes, you know, any, anything of value that could be carried out. 2022, it went to the ceiling level, so everything that was inundated.

John Milham (Host) · 32:53

Wow.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 32:54

That was, it was just a mess. Lots of mud everywhere. Um, I know using the high-pressure hose from the tanker, you could wash it out. And then 10 minutes after it sort of dried off a bit, it's still muddy. Yeah. Wash it out again. It's still muddy. Yeah. Um, in the renovations that follow, they took a lot of the linings off the wall. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that they just couldn't get the mud out.

John Milham (Host) · 33:22

Yes.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 33:23

It's a horrible job. You know, everything's wet, slimy, and smelly. As I've said before, I think if I had my choice, I'd rather fire than flood any day. Yeah. Because the cleanup's so much easier. Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 33:34

Wow.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 33:35

Heartbreaking stuff. And having to throw things away too. That's, you know, when you've got pallet after pallet of beer or wine, it just has to be thrown away because it's technically spoiled, whether it is or not. Just such a waste. Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 33:52

Yeah. I can imagine the council cleanup outside was interesting.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 33:56

So we had the skip bins. Felt like for months, and they're continually being built from around the district. Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 34:05

It's interesting then, you know, if you were to have a checklist of things that you would like, you know, you could put on notice boards for the towns who are impacted by 2022, from your personal experience and from your observation of what worked and what didn't, what do you think would be the important elements of that checklist?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 34:22

Depends on where you live, I suppose. For us living outside of the immediate flood zone where we're not directly impacted, If it's starting to rain, you stock up. Mm-hmm. If you've got that opportunity, and generally you do down in the village, places like that where you, there's a good chance it's going under, people start moving things, which, uh, I can relate to. I, I, I was born in Maitland and my parents and grandparents went through the floods there. I know that was always a, a thing of moving furniture and things higher when there was an impending flood.

John Milham (Host) · 34:56

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 34:58

The checklist, I'm not sure that there's so much a checklist, but there's more about awareness. One of the big things that assisted us in 2022 was prior to 2022, the Bureau of Meteorology installed river gauges. Yeah. So we can check the water levels. That made a huge difference because you could monitor from home and discuss with your neighbors where the water was rising and how fast it was rising. If you're going to make a checklist, the top of the would be keep an eye on those gauges and understand how they work.

John Milham (Host) · 35:30

Yeah, I've heard that some people talk about the gauges too. How important, like that brings up the thought, what would you, like if you've got a checklist for your community, that's great. What would you advise the organization of people trying to improve from a systemic response level? What do you think were the important lessons from that?

What agencies could do better

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 35:50

For floods, I don't think there's much you can do prior and during the flood. It's just really not possible. Yeah. You can't stop the flood. I mean, you have to ride it out, make sure people are safe and aware. So warnings are about the only thing you can do. The post-flood recovery is the thing. Assistance with the cleanup, not that I had any complaints with it, but that's probably the most important thing because those areas where people are impacted mentally or physically, I think they need that opportunity to talk. It may well be that nobody needs to talk, but you need to give them that opportunity to vent whatever they're feeling.

John Milham (Host) · 36:30

Wow.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 36:31

That's something we don't do very well.

John Milham (Host) · 36:32

No. And it's interesting, the Kintsugi Heroes program is about helping the community find ways to talk. So I'm glad that you think that's worthwhile.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 36:43

Look, I can understand why the agencies don't do it. Why would you put yourself up in front of a town meeting where you're going to be attacked? Yeah, possibly. But you have to do it.

John Milham (Host) · 36:54

Yeah.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 36:54

You just gotta, that's part of the job. You gotta wear that. If people are angry, let 'em be angry. Let 'em, let 'em get it out. Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 37:01

Which brings up a great, you know, my, my curiosity, how do you think the area is doing? Obviously it's made up of individuals and people have different stories and different they had different levels of impact from the floods. But how do you think the area's doing?

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 37:18

I think it bounced back pretty well from floods. Yeah. Get in, clean it up, and move on. That's coming from an area that's used to floods though. I'm not sure you'd have the same thing in Broke and places like that. Yeah. Where they're not so used to it. Yeah, for places that aren't used to it, it must come as an awful shock because you're just not prepared for it. That's never going to happen. Why should I even think about it?

John Milham (Host) · 37:41

And now just a personal question. You've been involved in a lot of stressful situations and you've seen loss both personally and then, you know, when the community itself is, you know, is calling on your wisdom, how do you advise them to let go and to keep going, moving on?

Take matters into your own hands

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 37:57

It's just encouragement. I think, well, the experience of up in the Blue Mountains following the fires, it's Encouraging people to take matters into their own hands. If they're not, if they're not satisfied with the response they're getting and the assistance they're getting, go and do it for yourself. And it's exactly what's happened up in the Blue Mountains, not instigated by me. They'd already made the decision to do that. And the results are spectacular. Terrific.

John Milham (Host) · 38:23

Well, that, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 38:27

You don't get anything by sitting back and complaining. Capable.

John Milham (Host) · 38:30

And I think, yeah, maybe a pathway to resilience through that sort of personal engagement on a local level.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 38:39

Yeah, I think it's all about taking a positive rather than a negative attitude to it following the event. Rather than complain about what's happened, which is very negative, take a positive attitude. What can we do? What can we learn from it? What can we do for the future?

John Milham (Host) · 38:54

Terrific advice, mate, and a terrific place to to pull stumps on what is such an informative and enlightening discussion. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank you for your continued contribution to the community. I know you probably don't feel like you need that, but looking from as an outsider, I love the way the community's come together and the stories of helping each other and I really appreciate you sharing that stuff with us today and wish you well for all of the events that come up in the future.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 39:35

For next time.

John Milham (Host) · 39:36

For next time. Because we kind of know there's going to be a next time of some variety.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 39:41

Yeah.

John Milham (Host) · 39:42

That's awesome, Tony. Thank you so much, mate.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 39:45

Thank you. Thank you very much.

John Milham (Host) · 39:51

For listening to this week's episode of Beyond the Deluge about the 2022 floods in Broke and the Hunter Valley. 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 Kintsugi Heroes and our other podcasts, please head to kintsugiheroes.com.au. Www.broke.com.au. Our theme song was provided by Colin Lilly. Thanks to Matthew Bliss for editing and production and to John Millum for hosting the conversations. And most of all, thank you to the community of Broke and the Hunter Valley for sharing their lived experience with us. We'll see you next week in Beyond the Deluge.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 40:43

Only when it's broken.

John Milham (Host) · 40:47

Only when it's broken.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 40:51

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.

John Milham (Host) · 41:08

Take pride in those cries, it's only for tonight.

Tony Hawkins (Guest) · 41:13

And then you rise. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.

The Reality of Floods for Emergency Services with Tony Hawkins

Overview

Chapters

Thirty years in Wollombi

Dragged into the RFS

Fire over flood, any day

The 2019 fires felt different

The unofficial response takes charge

Nobody refused to help

The tavern had to come first

A stranger turns into a good guy

Knowledge passed down through generations

The church learned the hard way

What agencies could do better

Take matters into your own hands

In Tony Hawkins's words

Tony Hawkins, today

Common questions

Is this a true story?

What organisation produced this?

What did Tony Hawkins learn from this experience?

What would Tony Hawkins want listeners to know?

What helped Tony Hawkins most along the way?

What would Tony Hawkins tell someone going through something similar?

Transcript

Thirty years in Wollombi

Support

Thriving through disaster thanks to community support with Mark Leigh

The Traumatic Impact and Toll a Flood Takes with Leith Moonen

Finding Resilience and Surviving the Three Ds with Natalie Stockdale

What topics does this episode cover?

Dragged into the RFS

Fire over flood, any day

The 2019 fires felt different

The unofficial response takes charge

Nobody refused to help

The tavern had to come first

A stranger turns into a good guy

Knowledge passed down through generations

The church learned the hard way

What agencies could do better

Take matters into your own hands