Lights are once again shining bright on Keen Street, as Brightway Lighting reopens their doors after recovering from the 2022 floods.

Brightway Lighting owner Shoel Surtees told The Lismore App it felt good to be back after 15 months.

“It feels great to be back,” she said.

“Everybody, including our regular customers as they’re walking past, have popped their head in, and they’re all just pretty stoked to see that we’re back open.”

Like many businesses, the recovery and rebuild had several delays due to the scale of the damage.

As the water receded, the damage began to show at Brightway Lighting. (Photo by Media Mode)

“There were a few big delays… just before Christmas there was a structural issue, so then they had to get an engineer out to fix that.”

“There were a few structural issues, and because all of our glass broke it had to be replaced, so that took us about six months through the insurance for us to do.”

Shoel had moved everything upstairs in the days before the flood, above the 1974 levels.

“We had moved - because we’ve got the tray up top - we had moved everything up on top of the tray, which is about the ‘74 flood height.”

“With the 2017 flood, the water came in and just rose up and went back out, but this one was on a whole other level.”

Brightway posted this comparison photo on their Facebook, showing the difference between the two floods.

“Every single window smashed, all our hardwood timber furniture which would normally just hose down, clean and put back in, was all gone.”

“We found our desk down in Browns Creek, so that was the only thing that we salvaged.”

“So we’ve brought [the desk] back to life, gave it a paint, sanded the top back… [the flood] has uncovered beautiful plaster work, our beautiful ceilings.”

“It all adds as a bit of character to the building, and I guess everything just feels fresh and new, so it's one good thing.”

If you walk around the Lismore CBD, slowly but surely life is returning to our city. It seems like a new shop is opening or reopening every week.

Eight Brother's Barbershop ready for trade, on their opening day.

Around the block, on the corner of Magellan and Molesworth Street – in the old Tahiti hut building – you will find Eight Brothers Barbershop, which had a grand opening last week.