What I learned from a post-flood clean up

It has rained non-stop for the last 24 hours. Our dam is full, the grass is green, my house is warm and dry. In this moment I am acutely aware of just how lucky I am.

I have been watching the updates of floods impacting Queensland, large parts of New South Wales and now Victoria. They are filled with images of shopping districts, parks and houses underwater. For this one in 100 hundred year event I expect the recovery effort will be one of the hardest.

My mother went through the January 2019 floods in Townsville - also a one in 100 year event. Her house was one of many impacted, and had around a metre water of flood water through. This was a new housing estate, the residents at the end of the street had only just moved in the week before. Simply devastating.

I flew up to Townsville to help my mother with the clean up and I really wasn't prepared for the devastation that floods cause. The street looked like a war zone. The Army had set up nearby to help with the clean up effort. The contents of people's houses were on the street where insurers had given the go ahead to start the clean up, or wet and rotting inside the houses of residents still waiting. A layer of mud covered everything.

It was hot, over 30 degrees, and one hundred percent humidity. The smell was awful, a mix of marshy mud and sewerage.

My mother lost around 85 per cent of the contents of her home ... essentially anything that the flood water (black water) had touched or that was affected by the moisture of the floodwater sitting in her home. We emptied her house, hosed the mud out, and then bleached everything, absolutely everything, with most surfaces already blooming with the green fur of mould.

It took 12 months to rebuild her home. The house was gutted and sprayed with disinfectant and then the long process to rebuild with the shortage of building supplies and tradies, with many hundreds going through the same process.

Throughout it all I was constantly amazed by the kindness of strangers. People showed up to help clean out houses, food trucks handed out free sausage sizzles and drinks, and others volunteered accommodation.

My mother was one of the ‘lucky’ ones, she had insurance, resources, and friends and family to help. However many others were under-insured or not insured, and experienced financial hardship.

Added to the stress of the flood event, financial stress, dealing with insurers and the rebuild, is the associated risk of mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. It's not hard to see the link between the disruption to life and businesses, and how this can contribute to poor mental health. This current flood event comes on top of the disruption and loss of bushfires for some communities, and Covid-19.

For this reason it will be so important to provide mental health support to impacted communities, including young people. This is where services like ReachOut (supported by Brave Smart Strong) available 24/7 online and that provide immediate support from information and resources, moderated peer support and one-on-one coaching for parents of teens, is just so important. For the next six months Brave Smart Strong will increase our donation of $1 per bracelet sale to ReachOut to $3 per bracelet sale, to help them be there for impacted communities at this time. 

If you would like to donate to ReachOut head to: https://about.au.reachout.com/donate