Helen Koker never thought she would be asking for help like this.
After floodwaters destroyed her home in Lismore, she's one of dozens of flood victims now attempting to raise money to help rebuild.
Her family spent two nights in an evacuation centre before pure chance saved them.
After seeing Ms Koker's posts on Instagram, a complete stranger contacted her, offering their family home while they were overseas.
Ms Koker said she was touched by "the kindness and the generosity and the trust" of the good Samaritan.
A photographer, Ms Koker estimates the damage to her photography equipment will reach $200,000 and she has now resorted to setting up her own GoFundMe page to try to get back on her feet.
"I felt a lot of guilt … it's hard to ask for help but we need it, everyone needs it at the moment," she said.
"It's really unfortunate that we're needing to ask other people rather than the government."
Frustrated with disaster response
Crowdfunding isn't new but what's emerged from these devastating floods appears to be a particularly unique theme of volunteerism.
Stories of heroes on jetskis delivering food and goods, rescuing citizens. A laptop and a spreadsheet became a makeshift rescue coordination centre. Funding is organised through community-driven online crowdsourcing.
Norm Black, founder of travel agent Trip A Deal, is one of thousands of volunteers who have donated time and money to the recovery effort.
"We've just been trying to help people get their household items out of their house and get it in a place where they can even think about beginning to clean the sludge from the floorboards," he said.
His motivation for setting up his own crowdfunding page came from what he says is his frustration with the delivery of services after disasters.
"We seem to be very slow, certainly coming from government sources, to get action and get funds in and get things in the hands of these people," he said.
Money raised to hire helicopter for food drops
Ross Meadows joined the volunteer effort last week, raising money via GoFundMe to charter the Sea World helicopter and deliver food drops to more remote parts of northern New South Wales.
"At Coraki, there was just nobody out there. You know, there was helicopters doing what they could do. But no ADF. No SES, no one, just no one, they were completely cut [off]," he said.
His friend coordinated logistics, organised the pick-up locations and took on the difficult task of prioritising people who asked for help.
"He was part of so many Facebook groups and text message groups and things like that, the addresses just came pouring in."
The group delivered five to six tonnes of food, performed welfare checks and dropped medical supplies.
Mr Meadows said he called the State Emergency Service last week to ask which areas needed the most help but never heard back.
There's a good deal of anger at both the state and federal governments.
In some areas, the rage is over immediate disaster response, which is more typically the dominion of the states.
In others, there are broader questions about disaster infrastructure and funding that are more typically the realm of federal government.
The NSW Premier has already announced a review of the state's response.
On Tuesday, the man in charge of coordinating the Australian Defence Force response to the floods in northern NSW, Major General David Thomae, apologised to people who felt abandoned.
For the volunteers on the ground, and those most deeply affected by the floods, the work will continue for a long time to come.
Watch this 7.30 story on ABC iview.
