By Sunday Feb 27, it had been raining heavily in the Northern Rivers region for several days (well 14 mths actually). I’d gone to bed the night before thinking ‘tonight could be the night’ but it wasn’t. When I woke up Sunday the creek had broken its banks. Not up to where it was in the Dec 2020 flood (which my neighbour said was higher than Cyclone Debbie in 2017), but close.

By lunchtime it was at that level. Whereas the 2020 peak came and went relatively quickly, this was sustained. I estimated it had another three metres to go before it swamped the house. With it still pouring, that seemed a likely scenario. I’d already moved some stuff prone to water damage off the floor the previous day but then i moved everything i could. It was raining continuously, with some heavy falls patterned in - typical of an approaching typhoon where you’re in the oncoming outstream.

By late afternoon it was beyond 2020 - i estimated `1-2m below house level. Then the wind picked up. Then it got dark. That adds a new layer. Now you know the creek is rising but you can’t see it. What prep could be done was done. I called an old Taiwan veteran (now living on the Gold Coast) for a chat and a drink coz it was reminiscent of the ‘here goes’ spirit of an impending typhoon. We kept it pretty moderate - i was fully expecting that i would need to react to water in the house somewhere in the next several hours.

That night, Feb 27-28, it raged all night. Windy, pouring, the corrugated iron flapping loudly on the timber pile shed. I went to bed at 12 but that wasn’t gonna work. Got up at 2.30, flashed the torch out to see if the water was approaching. Not within the torch-range of 20 feet anyway. Kept checking the radar – looking for some hint of relief – but it was piling in - we were right in the firing line.

Daylight on Feb 28 was vaguely cheering coz you can see again – I was impressed that I’d gotten that far. But it was still pouring - the radar saying more to come.

Twitter had photos, footage of Lismore – it was going under.

Then we lost the internet. Then the power. My house is nestled in a horseshoe bend of the creek - by now a channel had opened up from the northern section right through to the southern part cutting across the horseshoe at the top. It was within a few feet of the house. The height of the creek relative to the house was down to a few cms left. The creek banks are about 20m high, then there's a natural flood plain about 200m wide and another bank of about 5 m - so capable of taking a large volume of water. But if it breaches that then it's as flat as a pancake all the way to the house.

Several fraught hours later, around 1.30pm, the rain began to ease. Even without the radar i knew the danger to my house was over. I’m reasonably high upstream, so don’t have to worry about any delayed flow down effect. But Lismore does. My creek (and others) flow into the Wilson River which flows through Lismore. For sure they were going to me smashed.

The creek went down relatively quickly once the rain eased. By the next day it was back within its banks. I took a walk around the property to survey the damage. It was as i expected - any fences facing the oncoming flood were flattened tangled messes of debris - weeks of work to repair. I'd planted 400 trees along the banks of the creek to regenerate - they'd all gone fully under but most survived. Some of the bigger ones were flattened but could still be straightened and re-staked. My access road was cut off (for several days), but that was kind of a moot point coz all regional roads were cut beyond that anyway. I had plenty of food (and water!), so that was ok.

Of course i was incredibly lucky to still have a house (and my life) and i can imagine the soul destroying devastation that those who lost everything must feel. But lucky and feeling chipper are not the same thing. After 36hrs living on the edge, no sleep, and then the repair work all in front of you - you do feel drained.

It was another 2 days before the electricity came back on - but still no internet (that would remain out for 10 days!!! - i’ll get to that later). The TV media, which had totally missed the glaring warning signs, was now pumping out destruction porn from Lismore - in between ads for insurance companies, fat/sugar, alcohol, Telstra, and gambling.

Infuriatingly, they wouldn’t show the radar or any hard meteorological data re the system. Having missed all the warning signs, it was now all about pumping up fear across NSW after the horse has bolted, warning of more rain to come in hard hit areas - but that was only to hold viewers and increase advertising revenue.