The Flood Diaries is a project led by Dannielle Pickford and Sarah Moran, two women deeply connected to Lismore. While our families were on rooftops and in flood waters, we were coordinating citizen volunteers on the ground with online requests for help.
We instigated the Flood Diaries project following the 2022 flood to collate community experiences and perspectives to act as a voice for the community once the media cycle has moved on, and to help facilitate change in our systems.
We created flooddiaries.com as a mental health response to the floods, as it was immediately apparent to us that there is a lot of trauma being experienced by the community - people needed to talk about what happened.
Over time, we have heard the stories of over 300 citizens who entered dangerous flood waters as
part of a citizen-led response to Lismore floods.
We wanted to ensure their bravery was captured not only to recognise the contribution made by “the boaties” but also to assist with formal inquiries and future planning.
We now manage an evolving list of rescuer names and have nominated each person for an Australian Bravery Decoration, namely the Bravery Medal (BM). So far to our knowledge, no Bravery Medals have been awarded for the Lismore Floods 2022, despite it being the largest citizen response in Australian history.
We surveyed 43 citizen rescuers and asked them to share their experiences before, during and after the Far North Coast Floods. You can read the full story in our other submission: “Flood
Diaries: A citizen response to NSW Floods through community storytelling” and our
other submission “Flood Diaries: Community Questions”.
What is glaringly obvious to us is there has been absolutely no mental health follow-up with any of the citizen volunteers who entered the water as “boaties”.
It is an oversight and neglectful to not follow-up with those in a volunteer capacity: they need
to debrief with professionals and this should be built into the processes of emergency response, not left to individuals to seek help.
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