‘They shouldn’t have built houses here’: navigating disaster in the flood waters of Sydney’s north-west

Windsor street disappears under floodwaters at Richmond west of Sydney. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

In the suburbs that hug the Hawkesbury River in Sydney’s north west, some residents are lost for words about the latest floods. To locals anxiously watching water swallow bridges, roads, houses and entire suburbs for the third time this year, it feels relentless.

“What more is there to say really?” asks 35-year-old mother Tracey, who has lived in the Hawkesbury her whole life. While recalling all the floods that have occurred over the past two years, she momentarily loses count.