The never-ending fallout of the northern rivers floods: ‘People are just worn down’

The town of Lismore in the NSW northern rivers region was hit by two huge storms in February and March last year. The floods were the most expensive disaster in Australian history. Photograph: David Maurice Smith/The Guardian

In February the hills and valleys of the New South Wales northern rivers are green and lush and fertile in the late summer sun. There is brightness in the madly proliferating tropical flora, radiance in the golden hour of the evening.

In the towns the mud has gone, mostly, and the smell too has faded; a semblance of normality returned to the main streets. As the foliage has returned, the devastation of the 2022 floods is more hidden now; the scale of what happened. The people who are changed.