Nobody knows natural disasters quite like Member for Lismore and Minister for Recovery Janelle Saffin.

It is now folklore that Ms Saffin swam to safety from her flooded home in North Lismore on 28 February 2022. She has been integrally involved in Lismore's rescue, recovery and rebuild for the last three years.

As the cleanup continues and the damage bill is still being assessed, the Lismore App had a chat with Ms Saffin to compare the recent Mid North Coast floods to 2022, and to learn about what lessons have changed the rescue and recovery efforts since 2022.

The rain on the Mid North Coast around Taree, built on the Manning River, broke records with 750mm in May, the Manning River recorded its highest ever level of 6m, half a metre higher than the previous record, the Pacific Highway was cut off, and five people lost their lives.

"The similarities lie in that they had rain bombs, so some of the farms I met were in a pocket, went totally under, and some businesses went under. It wasn't like the whole CBD, but there were pockets of it and bits of it where they got a lot of water, and the same with some houses.

"When you read the report of uninhabitable houses. I say you have to drill down, and I get the drill down figures, it just means on that day when it was assessed, because it needs to be cleaned out. There is some that they say can't be lived in. It's clear what's happened to them."

"For people who go through it, we can't compare because of the shock and the disbelief and the mud. This one, everybody talked about the mud, there was so much mud, and they said the one before was big in 2021, but not the mud. 

"We can remember the mud and can smell the mud still."

Ms Saffin explained that Taree's topography is different from Lismore's. Taree is not a basin like Lismore, but it does have pockets of low-lying areas.

"The farms I went to are all low-lying, near the river. Good land, when it's all good, particularly for the dairy. So again, pockets of it. But it's up-and-down the mid north coast and to the Hunter area, so I've been right across it, although there are still some places I've got to go to. 

"Nearly everything's been assessed now. Some of the members of Parliament came to me and the Reconstruction Authority, and others, because there was a list of localities or suburbs that could qualify for the personal hardship.

BUYBACKS

Are buybacks being considered at this time for those homes inundated with water?

"No. The premier said that's not under consideration at this stage, and I've said that one of the things we did here, we did do buybacks, and I mentioned it yesterday in a media interview, and I noticed on Facebook or Meta that some people say oh she said that. Well, I said that from the beginning, I said it should be a managed retreat. So, if you're having buybacks, it has to be a managed retreat and not just, okay, we're going to buy back all these houses because it has to be done with community, has to be done looking at the economic impact on the town on the CBD, you know all of that. And we didn't start like that, I mean that's no secret, but everything I'm saying now, I said at the time, so it's not new, but for some, they are lessons learned."

TAREE STATISTICS

• Currently there are 128 households in emergency care
• Damage assessments concluded on Sunday, 1 June 2025, with more than 12,000 properties assessed. Of these, more than 1,200 have been deemed uninhabitable, including 736 residential and 142 commercial premises; however, this means there was water over the floor, so as more extensive examinations are undertaken, that number will decrease. 
• More than 18,000 cubic metres of waste has been removed from the Mid North Coast region and transported to 11 temporary emergency waste sites. The sites support faster debris removal by local councils and Public Works, while ensuring waste is properly sorted — with recyclables separated and remaining materials compacted before going to landfill. 
• More than 12,000 tonnes of waste has been sent to landfill. 

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has also engaged specialist marine contractors to remove large and hazardous flood debris from rivers. Clean-up efforts are underway in the Manning, Hastings, Nambucca Rivers, with the first pass of the Macleay River now complete. Items collected include livestock carcasses, silage bales and chemical drums. 

As of Tuesday, 10 June, there will be 5 Recovery Centres open in Taree, Kempsey, Wauchope, Macksville and Wingham and 5 Recovery Assistance Points at Raymond Terrace, Manning Point, The Entrance, Kempsey (Kinchela Boys Mob Hub) and Taree (Biripi Aboriginal Community).

Ms Saffin said that those who have been displaced want to go home. This is being worked through with mayors, MPs and the local communities.

"That's being considered now. There has been money in Category A and B, and there's money, of course, for roads. Roads is the biggest expenditure in floods. It's massive. And then there's some money, and I know farmers are asking for more, understandably, there's some money for farmers, some for small businesses and not for profit, rural land holders, that's all been announced.

"Then we're working through housing now. What they're looking at is caravans on people's properties. Remember, how we banged on about it here from day one, to get people on their property, and oh no no no we couldn't do that. I even remember someone saying to me in authority, Oh, Janelle, they might take the caravan away. I said a whoopee do. 

"So, I said caravans because people could be back home sorting out their home, cleaning up, and doing all the things they need to do. And if they're rented, talk to the landlord and see if that can happen. That's the conversation that's underway now."

As there are no buybacks on offer, and thousands of displaced people will be moving back to their homes, Ms Saffin confirmed that house raisings and retrofits will be the mitigation solution for some, if they want it.

If the state government is not looking at buybacks, will they look at a land swap through a Resilients Lands-type program?

"Again, I don't know because we're not at that stage yet. One of the things I've learnt from here, and I did say at the time, hasten slowly. There's some things that have to be absolutely immediate, but hasten slowly in what you do in your local communities that impacts on your whole life; your social cohesion, your economy, all of that. So, don't sort of rush into it. And I found here that sometimes people would say to me Oh, Janelle, we've got to do this, we've got to do it straight away. 12 months later, they said the opposite to me. Just with time and consideration. So, I do say hasten slowly." 

2022 LEARNINGS FOR THE REST OF NSW

"Early warnings, as much as you can, and because we always get told that the SES wait for the BOM before they do it, and I said, well, you're on the ground, you've got intel from locals, you're watching it, you're watching rain bombs, you might go ahead of the BOM. I've seen that happen.

"When I say go ahead, they still have the BOM integrated with them, someone from the BOM, but just make sure people get enough time. And, if it looks like it's going to cut you off, then you have to have time to get out. So, I've seen that lesson learned, but we still really need to get the early warning down pat. One thing I do know, and it hasn't been in the public realm so to speak, is there were tinnies out rescuing people and helping neighbours and rescuing people. I said thank you to them because, as we know, often it's the locals who are the first responders." 

Another lesson learned from 2022 is the coordination of the rescue plan after a disaster.

"This was coordinated, and I've had people comment to me, even locals. When you're hit yourself, and in the eye of the disaster, it can feel like nothing is happening, it's not fast enough, what's going on? But you look at it, and you can see it was a coordinated effort. The SES had everyone there; Fire and Rescue, RFS, VRA, Marine Rescue, I mean, absolutely everybody was there, and recovery was being set up at the same time they were doing rescue."

"When the rescue and the response are over, at the formal handover, which was last Monday, Mal Lanyon had the team out and about, and they were there like with Alfred, in that preparation. There were five recovery centres set up, a number of recovery assistance points, smaller ones, or you go out mobile to villages and places. And a lot of things were in place already, like the waste, it was being moved pretty quickly. There were LLS Department of Primary Industries people stepping up, EPA, all of that, plus moving livestock that were deceased." 

Another lesson learned from 2022 is the management of incoming emergency phone calls.

"We had nothing. We had silence, didn't we? SES can patch through calls that come to them, so they diverted calls to other combat agencies. That didn't happen in 2022. 

On the Mid North Coast, a volunteer group, similar to Resilient Lismore in 2017, was set up quickly.

"They were ready to help everybody, and the SES worked with them. It was fantastic. There's a fellow in SES who's done his Churchill Scholarship on spontaneous volunteers with community groups, and they worked together really well. The SES were out on the ground first, a lot of them, and they would allocate tasks, they would help, they would feed people and go out to people, so it was fantastic to see that in operation." 

"When I walked into the EOC, the emergency operation centre in Taree, they said Hi Janelle, someone from Lismore is on the team's meeting. I went in and Holly Langer was there with her team and Ellie Bird was on screen. She had her program up, the way you take calls, log them, work allocation, what I call soft infrastructure stuff, so that was really helpful."

The Lismore and Northern Rivers community understands only too well the situation the Mid North Coast are experiencing right now. How can we help?

"I always say money. If we can give money, that's really helpful. Givit, is the formal site that the Reconstruction Authority uses, but you all know your local trusted people; there is Vinnie's, the Salvo's, Anglicare and Red Cross. There may be other local ones, and I always say just make sure it's a trusted body when you donate." 

It is good to know that lessons have been learned from February 28 2022, and that knowledge is being used to quicken the rescue and recovery process following a natural disaster.