Gympie residents avoided physical devastation when floodwaters stopped rising at a moderate level on May 14, but the mental health of victims still reeling from February's floods was not spared.
Two floods in three months has been traumatic for the community, and although flood victims can now access fully funded psychological help, charitable volunteers and locals have warned the scars will remain for a long time to come.
Resident Neil Milner said as he watched floodwaters rise from his internally gutted home, he wondered how he would bear it again.
"I mean, it just guts you emotionally thinking that what little progress you've made is just going to wash away," Mr Milner said.
Mr Milner lives in one of the lowest lying areas of Gympie.
During the February floods, the water level almost touched his ceiling, but in May it stopped about 15 metres from his home.
"To consider that the amount of water that came through this place and if that was probable again, it's a hopeless situation," he said.
Gympie tradesman Damien Johnson's rental home was destroyed in February and he has been couch surfing and sleeping in his car since.
"I just keep getting bumped around from department to department, 'no, we can't help you, you've got to go to Brisbane'," Mr Johnson said.
"I haven't had a shower in two days."
The February floods reached 22 metres, while the waters peaked at 16 metres in May.
Triggering tides
In the aftermath of the floods, federal government funding has been allocated for affected residents in Central Queensland, Wide Bay, the Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Southern Downs to get psychological help.
"To access this support, people can visit their GP and request a referral to the PHN [Primary Health Network] Mental Health Intake and Referral program which accepts referrals directly from GPs," a Primary Health Network spokesperson said.
"Through that process, people will be referred to mental health professionals for counselling and support."
Several charity hubs were created in Gympie by concerned and compassionate residents following the February floods and three months on, many have joined forces to provide support.
Volunteer Amanda Irvine said mental health issues would be the biggest impact on the region after being hit by floodwaters multiple times this year.
"That's the hidden story really and it's the saddest part of it," Ms Irvine said.
"We can physically rebuild and we can have all these amazing initiatives to assist the town, but how is the mental health really going?
"The water levels were not as high [in this flood] but the anxiety was absolutely through the roof and people are still struggling to come down from that now.
"The post-traumatic stress, if it's not hitting now, it's going to be hitting later on."
She said her only concern was flood victims wouldn't reach out for psychological help.
"Because once again, the same theme will come up that 'Oh, no, there's someone worse off than me, leave it for the people that can help'," she said.
Lack of control and predictability leads to fear
Psychologist Rachael Sharman said experiencing anxiety as a result of natural disasters was very common due to its unpredictable and uncontrollable nature.
"Where we have a situation that we can't predict where we have a situation that we cannot control, that gives rise to the emotion of fear," Dr Sharman said.
"That's obviously going to be expressed for most people in terms of anxiety and possibly just even a bit of a fight or flight response, or withdrawing or trying to get out there and do something."
She said the increasing frequency of natural disasters would be increasing the anxiety levels of residents in flood impacted areas.
"Imagine you take a wave and you get massively dumped and as you're coming up for air, another wave hits you in the face," she said.
"That second one is much worse and far more disorienting than the first, so it's just that very human thing of basically being kicked while you're already down.
"We keep hearing that these are one-in-100-year events and yet they seem to be happening every five to 10 years.
"I'm sure most people did not predict another one in three months, that probably came as quite a shock and I imagine many people were blindsided."
Local realtor Janzey Pratt said while governments had made announcements about funding, she was yet to see noticeable improvements in the town since February.
"We are a strong resilient community, but we can only do and take so much," Ms Pratt said.
"People, they're exhausted, they're emotionally spent psychologically, like we've got people that are really depressed.
"When it started to happen again, and with that consistent, heavy rain that just didn't stop there for 48 hours, I was a complete mess."
