Skye Swift was stuck in flood waters in the northern New South Wales town of Tweed Heads when she posted an urgent callout on social media requesting a boat ride to distribute essentials at her pharmacy.
“We were all flooded out of the CBD,” the pharmacist said. “But Tuesday morning I woke up and thought, ‘I want to be at work today’.
“Everyone told me I couldn’t, because the roads are closed, so I posted on Facebook saying if anyone can devise a way for me to get to Murwillumbah by boat I’ll open the pharmacy.”
What she didn’t expect was for the former world champion surfer Mick Fanning to answer her call.
Fanning and a fellow surfing champion, Joel Parkinson, have been busy ferrying stranded residents and distributing supplies to people badly hit by floods at Tumbulgum on the north coast of NSW.
An evacuation order was issued for Tumbulgum and surrounding areas on Sunday amid rising flood waters exceeding 2 metres, cutting off roads and access to water and power.
Since the floods hit on Monday, the pair have helped rescue dozens of people and pets.
More than 500 flood rescues and 927 calls for help were made in northern NSW in a 24-hour period amid the catastrophic conditions.
Swift said she had seen people posting about “fellas on jet skis” and received a call from one on Tuesday morning assuring her “no worries, I’ll make it happen”.
She was instructed to make her way to Tumbulgum but became stuck multiple times due to closed roads.
“A guy took me on his tinnie across flooded cow paddocks towards Tumbulgum, so I got a hold of them and said, ‘I’m in a tinnie, can a jetski meet me?’
“He said keep an eye out, and … within a minute, a jetski turned up with Mick Fanning on it.
“I was stoked, I was grateful, I was a little bit chuffed it was Mick for a bit of sunlight around the day.”
The couple met a few hurdles along the way – they barely made it under a bridge they approached at high tide. But they “didn’t have any other options”, and got through.
They also came across a boat that had run out of fuel, which Fanning towed to safety before continuing on.
“Mick was pretty funny, he was like, ‘We’ve got to get Skye to the pharmacy, it’s urgent,’” Swift said.
“He was adorable and lovely, he reached out last night and said, ‘If you need help getting medicines out, just give us a call.’”
Swift eventually made it to the Varela and Swift Pharmacy early on Tuesday morning, and opened until late into evening.
“I’ve been through the 2017 floods when we were flooded into town,” she said. “I was the only pharmacy open for four days, but this was definitely the most dramatic entrance I’ve made to work.”
“The customers are so grateful, I can’t believe how resilient they are. They’ve lost everything, they’ve lost businesses, their houses are still under water, we have people staying in the evacuation centre …
“There’s limited supplies – no milk, no water, soon no petrol. It’s horrific, but everyone is so grateful.”
Swift said many people were arriving stressed because they’d lost medicines and prescriptions. “We’re just taking care of them,” she said.
She doesn’t expect she’ll be able to make it home to Tweed Heads for another day or two – the water is receding but there’s still no entry or exit.
She said the good news stories, the solidarity, was “beautiful, but not enough at the end of the day”.
“The mental side is amazing, but we’ve now got weeks and months of rebuilding. And how do you rebuild when you don’t have any money, a job?
“It’s the aftermath that gets missed, that’s the heartbreaking part … it’s going to be a long road.”
