Last night I was woken at midnight by my dog Hugo having a panic attack from the thunder, nothing out of the ordinary – only an annoying hindrance to sleep.
Then the wind and rain which has been steady for months began building into an extreme weather event – with the house shaking and trees bending almost over on to themselves.
Within an hour, our bedroom started to leak and out came buckets and towels. Our normally stationary creek had trees floating past us, ripped from the banks by the wind. At 2am the flood waters – already at an uncomfortably high level for the past two days – strove for new heights.
People holding their phones for light were at their shops trying to stop water coming in with sandbags, in a futile effort.
At 3am town was submerged and resignation set in. As high tide came, the water continued to rise, hitting its peak early in the morning.
People driving through the flood waters in town for fun caused waves that further damaged the stores and businesses.
I cannot remember sunshine. It has been raining steadily since spring.
If you have been fortunate enough to not lose your home, business and personal belongings, as so many have, then at the very least you have mould all over your possessions, your income affected and are grappling with the seasonal depression.
Here in Byron Bay we survived last month’s flooding, which would once have been considered severe but is now a “new normal” to us.
Merely four weeks later we are under water again, with a new level of disaster reached.
My girlfriend’s Fletcher Street clothing store, Enzo & Toto, is ruined, the hundreds of hours she spent preparing and labelling stock gone, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of carefully chosen clothing.
The shop is filled with muddy brown water, dishevelled mannequins protruding from the chaos.
The entire town is under water up to your waist at some points, with police now stopping people from entering.
The severity of the wind during the night was that of a mini-cyclone blowing with caprice in every direction.
In just two years the northern rivers has suffered multiple record-breaking floods and a fire season never experienced before, as well as coronavirus lockdowns that brought this tourist town to its knees.
Growing up here you are used to flooding – you build your homes up high or elevated on poles. But this is something else – a disaster that never ends.
We first heard first these events were once in 100 years, then once in 500 years and then in 1,000 years.
This is climate change manifest: we were warned, and our government did nothing.
After this there will be droughts and all the associated chaos – the loss of life and damage that high temperatures and dry bush bring.
This is a microcosm of the impending doom humanity will face. Heed our warning, we must change our habits and policy – though it may already be too late.
Travis Lipshus is a real estate agent in Byron Bay
