The PM calls this a natural disaster – it’s not natural, it’s climate change smashing down our doors

‘We don’t know where to start. It is too overwhelming, not just what we have to deal with here, but the whole situation; our neighbours, our destroyed town’. Photograph: Eddie Lloyd

It took three days after the rescue to get back and assess the damage to my partner’s home in North Lismore.

At least it is still standing. Everything is brown. Muddy waters and debris block our way so we grab some washed-up scaffolding and wood to make a bridge to cross the water-filled ditch over the back of the disused rail line. My partner, his friend, my eight-year-old son and I cross the bridge crab-style, then climb over the railway tracks and through more muddy water into the backyard.