Lismore’s residents are living in limbo on the frontlines of the climate emergency

Demolished buildings in Lismore, where people are still living among post-flood brokenness. Photograph: Patrick Hamilton/AFP/Getty Images

In the Northern Rivers, we live amid post-flood brokenness.

For months, we’ve been crushed by incessant rain and the thick, low cloud of La Niña. Of the year’s 24 weekends, it has rained on 19. Someone is counting rainy days, yet time here has stalled. Shops are abandoned, and people are camping in the shells of houses without walls or kitchens.