Beyond the Deluge: Flood Resilience Stories from the Hunter Valley

Evelyn Hardy is a well -loved local pillar of the local community in Broke. She loves to keep busy and found that during the 2022 floods her commitment to the wellbeing of the local community was a way of dealing with her own losses in the flood.

In her story she shares her experiences during the floods. As secretary of the Broke Community Hall and together with a wonderful group of local women she played a pivotal role in offering help and support to the local community.

“Keeping in touch with community and helping out is something I enjoy immensely.

Ever since the flood in July 2022 there has been an enormous amount of work needing to be done and being a part of our local committee, Broke Residents Community Association, has kept a focus on getting back on ours and everyone else’s feet.”

“For the past almost 20 months everyone in our community has been focusing on getting back on track to pre flood.

The BRCA and many others have worked toward helping in the recovery and wellbeing of all of our community members. Being a part of this community has been something that I personally am very proud and humbled by.

It’s been an incredibly hard experience with several people still nowhere near over the impact of the floods. Being there for the ones still going through this is very important to me personally and providing support and wellbeing is top priority moving forward.”

Biography

I’m a mum of 2 adult children and a grandmother.

I volunteer at the Singleton Neighbourhood Centre.

I am the secretary of the Broke Community Hall.

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We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Beyond the Deluge and Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

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Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

This episode of Kintsugi Heroes was made possible in partnership with Singleton Neighbourhood Center with grant funding from the Hunter New England and Centre Primary Health Network.

Tony is a long-time resident of the Wollombi area up near Broke. He moved there with his partner in 1992.

His story concerns the 2022 Broke and Bulga and Wollombi flood situation. He has a unique perspective because of his long association with the Rural Fire Service (RFS) and community support.

During floods, the community reaches out for help and support from existing community organisations and the RFS played a pivotal role in the 2022 floods.

Biography

After a long period of service as a Volunteer with the NSW Rural Fire Service, joined the RFS as a staff member, specialising in bushfire mitigation.

Tony has a dual passion. Understanding and implementing best practice bushfire management and sharing that knowledge and experience through training and mentoring. He has a professional and personal desire to develop existing programs to a higher level and is highly qualified.

For the last few years, in private consultancy, he has been involved with training, including in cultural burning practices in the Hunter. Following the fires in 2019, he has been involved in community resilience training.

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Beyond the Deluge and Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

This episode of Kintsugi Heroes was made possible in partnership with Singleton Neighbourhood Center with grant funding from the Hunter New England and Centre Primary Health Network.

Carly Dawson only moved into Broke almost a year to the day before the floods. She had been around the area for a while before that after she and her and her son had spent a long time travelling and working around Australia with a caravan, but with no plans to settle in Broke.

Circumstances led them to the Hunter and she subsequently got a job in the Broke area. They had been traveling for about five years at that stage and it was time to settle down somewhere and try something new. In 2021 she bought an old house in the centre of town.

Carly tells her story with compassion and clarity. The flood did not enter her house but came very close and she witnessed the devastation suffered by others as she struggled with Covid so had to remain in isolation.

“At one stage I dozed off and I woke up much later, to a lapping sound. For a minute I thought I was in a boat because my brain wasn't working properly. I thought, hang on, that doesn't sound good. I went to one of my back rooms to look out the window onto the street and the water was up around the house. I went out to the front patio and the water was completely up to top of the stairs of the patio.”

Like other locals she expresses her appreciation of the supportive community and what that meant to her as a newcomer to the area.

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Beyond the Deluge and Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

This episode of Kintsugi Heroes was made possible in partnership with Singleton Neighbourhood Center with grant funding from the Hunter New England and Centre Primary Health Network.

G'day, John Millam from Kintsugi Heroes, and welcome to Beyond the Deluge.

There are some encounters in life that no amount of preparation planning and past experience will equip us to deal with when they hit. On the 6th of July, 2022, the rivers and streams outside of Wollombi broke and other villages in the Undervalley, New South Wales flowed over the banks, and the small towns were flooded and devastation was left in the watersway.

Over 300 locals traumatized and displaced, were left without support, power, and even aid for a time, while the worst flood in 70 years ravaged the place they called home.

While it's not uncommon in rural Australia to face adversity, the fires of 2019 went through the same area and were devastating. And yet, floods bring a special kind of awful with the mud and stink. We feel despair, we feel the loss of our precious momentos and loved things, and our sense of safety. The ongoing impact is still being managed, and so much cost and impact must also count the trauma and anxiety left by.

Yet, from this devastation, hope will find a way. And here, we also find talk of heroes, of generosity and community.(...) In this special "Konsoogi Heroes" limited podcast series, "Beyond the Deluge," we hope to share stories of the floods, both adversity and resilience from the towns and villages. We've spoken to a group of people who have varying views and experiences, and through them, we start to capture the awful realities of coping with the Deluge. And we also hear them share moments of courage, care and wonder.

I will walk with the lived experiences of these people who worked hard to overcome the dark time and are working hard to reset, restore and rebuild their lives, their homes and their community.

It also brought back memories. For me as a child, I lived in the northwest of New South Wales, a little town called Weewool, where we went through five full floods in seven years. As a kid, it was almost exciting, lots of people pitching in, yet it was also terrible and scary.

I can remember vividly walking outside my home, up to my chest in water, constantly ducking out of the way of floating furniture and rubbish, and of course, brown snakes. All that work and loss, in the end, saw my parents toss it in and end to Sydney.

In these conversations, I see how hard the folks in and around Broke are working to bring this place fully back to life.

Kintsugi, you may know, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold and water. They feel like the repaired object with its scars becomes even more beautiful than the original.

So while events, like the hardships of the floods, can push us to breaking, hearing the stories of spirit, of courage, and restoration can help us cope, heal, and come back stronger as a person and as a community. Sharing those stories is part of that gold glue.

Please watch this fortnightly podcast, Kintsugi Heroes, Beyond the Deluge, and please be inspired as you hear the tales from Beyond the Deluge.

Thank you.