Several flood victims blinked back tears as they recalled their experiences for an independent flood inquiry hearing in Mullumbimby, north-west of Byron Bay, on Monday.
Among those sharing their stories with the independent flood inquiry was local woman Svea Pitman, who is still homeless more than three months after her house was flooded.
"We'd just finished five years of renovating, it had never flooded until 2017, three months after I bought it.
"First time it was a few inches through the house, this time it was almost a metre and we've lost everything."
Ms Pitman told the inquiry she had moved seven times since the floods.
"The first emergency accommodation we were given for seven weeks, we moved our belongings into the house only to be told after three weeks there was a double booking," she said.
"Since then we've moved to a converted shed, an Airbnb, we spent six days in a tent over Easter because there was nowhere to put us at all.
"I've just managed to extend my home loan to get a motorhome and I'm now living in the gutter outside the front of my old house.
SES members traumatised
Cath Garvan, a volunteer with Mullumbimby's State Emergency Service unit, was also emotional.
"Three months on, I'm still traumatised," she said.
"Not knowing if my house had been flooded or my dog alive while I was out doing flood rescues for 24 hours straight.
"I don't want applause for that because it was inadequate, we acknowledge that it was inadequate."
Ms Garvan told the inquiry that SES crews were overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.
"We all did the best we could with the limited resources we had," she said.
"We had resources in place, we had planning in place but it was simply overwhelming and I don't think with 1,000 additional resources we would have been able to do justice to the requirements of our community and I'm very sorry about that.
"Even with the 30 members we've acquired since, if we had this event occurring again ... we're still going to struggle."
Ms Garvan's SES colleague Eco Tsadik made an impassioned plea for more volunteers.
"At the end we had 12 people that actually responded from the SES from our community," he said.
"Why is that, why are you waiting until there's an event like this to go 'oh s**t there is a problem'?
"It would be really good if people put their hand up before and train and get better."
'Everyone I know got sick'
Simon Ceglinski, from the nearby Brunswick Heads Surf Life Saving Club, said members from around the region did their best to help in the crisis.
"We were all self-tasked, no-one asked us, we just turned up," he said.
"Everyone I know got sick, got sores, got hurt.
"People spent time in hospital afterwards, and most of us got COVID."
Byron's Deputy Mayor, Sarah Ndiaye, told the inquiry about how the Mullumbimby Ex Services Club, which was hosting the meeting, was turned into an evacuation centre in the hours immediately after the flood.
"We ended up with around 315 people ... there were about 60 dogs and 20 cats hiding for their lives," she said.
"I saw a teenager from my school kayak in an 84-year-old lady.
The inquiry will host online meetings for the Hawkesbury-Nepean and Clarence Valley communities next week, and is also planning to host an Indigenous roundtable discussion in the Northern Rivers later this month.
