It was November 5 when the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) CEO David Witherdin and his team led the first Resilient Home session in Lismore so flood-affected people could learn of the process involved and loose time-frames in the $850 million Resilient Homes and Resilient Land Funding programs.

Over three weeks later, the Lismore App caught up with Mr Witherdin to get an update.

Step 1 was that each registered resident (via the NRRC website or the Flood Property Assessment program) would receive a text message confirming their participation in the Resilient Homes program.

"The text messages were sent about 2 weeks ago now and, I think, in that initial tranche there are about five and a half thousand that went out. This was reaffirmed when we ran the community workshops in Mullum (Mullumbimby) because people acknowledged the fact they received the text. We got plenty of nods around the room so that was good.

Step 2 is to assign everybody a Case Manager through the newly setup call center.

"The call center is set up with some of the case management program team leaders involved in some of the workshops so they can understand that local context," Mr Witherdin explained.

"There has been engagement already through making those initial calls and allocating a number of case managers so we can form case studies to really work through and just smooth the process out."

In terms of time-frames, how long before a person knows their situation. Whether they are available for a house buyback, raising or retrofit?

"The first question we need to ask," Mr Witherdin said, "Is are they actually interested in any aspect of the program. If they indicate they want to be assessed they then go to our assessments team."

"Some will be relatively simple. If your house has been essentially demolished and you're in an area that we know was heavily inundated, that's a no brainer. From there, we will initiate the valuations for a voluntary purchase."

"It is less than four weeks until Christmas now, so hopefully, we would be in a position to have a few of those discussions before Christmas but, I think realistically, most of that is not going to happen until the New Year in any volume."

"We want to use this period to really smooth the process out, look at some of the metrics around how long it is taking to do an assessment and use that to make sure we have the right level of resources allocated to the program."

Mr Witherdin explained that what may take a year to get the job completed, they want to do in six months. "Same cost, more staff and a shorter time-frame. Our inclination is to go harder earlier to give people clarity especially those with the highest risk."

"Hopefully, by mid-next year we are really well advanced across all streams of the program. That's where I'd hope we can get to."

A vital component of the Resilient Homes program is market capacity which Mr Witherdin put in context so people could understand the enormity of this project.

"Market capacity, particularly when it comes to both house raising and resilient retrofitting, is really limited," he said, "I spent Thursday morning up at Murwillumbah with a major house raising contractor looking at the process and how quickly they move through that."

"We're working on procurement so we can ensure we can drive the best value for money around that as well."

"Ultimately, we will probably expect in the order of about 2000 house raisings and I think, realistically, you are probably going to need to stretch that over about five years. So you know that is about 400 a year or 8 per week."

"There is a contractor, who covers South East Queensland, so from Brisbane River down to the Northern Rivers, who is doing 150 a year at the moment in that area. They are pretty confident they can scale up to about 300 a year."

"This is a pretty specific skill set as well, but, if they know they've got a 5-year program of work, they can then start to bring resources on and do the training skills development in terms of an investment as well. So, we're just sort of looking at the right procurement approaches, so we can sort of stimulate enough market capacity in that area because the last thing you want to do is put these grants out there and then essentially have people competing against each other to just the drive the market up because it becomes unaffordable as well."

Another consideration on price is the price of steel, a key component involved in raising a house, which has increased 150% in two years.

"In terms of what we're talking about, $100K grants, most house raisings can be done under that. But there is the cost sharing on a 50/50 basis above that in any case."

"So, there's a whole lot of things that we're really keen to be running early pilot examples just so we can smooth out our process because the scale of the numbers we're dealing with is really quite enormous."

Mr Witherdin explained that to physically raise a house can be done within a day but it is the planning and preparation like connecting services that takes more time.

What if a person was in a assessed 'red' zone and is eligible for a house buyback, can they stay and opt for a house raising instead?

"No, that is currently not how the guidelines sit, you don't have second and third tier options there."

"We want to get you off the floodplain. We want to get you off there for a good reason, you know, because there's a high depth of water, there's a high velocity of water and you know the last thing we want to do is sort of have you sitting there, it might be up above the flood water, until a shipping container comes flying down into your house and bloody barrels the thing down and then we have to rescue you. What is the potential risk you put on first responders also?"

"We've got a role in letting people understand what the risk is if they stay on the floodplain," Mr Witherdin said.

As you can read, the journey to house buybacks, house raisings and retrofits has begun but any thought of a quick resolution should be adjusted immediately. Something of this size and scale takes time. Time needed to get all the elements right to keep costs down so a house can be raised for under $100,000 so there is no further pressure on those homeowners who has already suffered enough.

I remember one of our earlier stories when talking to Brenden Winder from the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) on April 17, below are his tips for Lismore and Northern Rivers residents:

Three things:

1. Take a deep breath, this is going to go longer and cost more money than you think.
2. What you end up with will be better than what you have now and you will look back on some of it with real pride.
3. I know there are people that are upset for what has happened to their house, I get that, they will need to be supported. For the people that will be going into the recovery agency it will be complex, time-consuming and heartbreaking but it is important work and it needs to get done and when you get it done it will be rewarding to look back on and really good learning.

Wise words from someone who has been through a natural disaster of a massive scale, one that took 10-years for the recovery to be completed.

We are only nine months into our journey.