It’s been more than four months of blood, sweat and tears but now it’s just days away. Lismore’s only bookshop will soon reopen its doors for the first time since the February flood disaster.

Fearless leader and owner of the five Book Warehouse stores in the Northern Rivers, Sarah Morrow, has worked tirelessly with her dedicated team of colleagues, family and construction crew to bring the books back.

“The last 4 months have been the most difficult we’ve had, ever. The effect of the flood on our shop, our community, our entire region, has been enormous. Too enormous for words,” Ms Morrow said.

Ms Morrow told the Lismore App she did not consider walking away from the business after the devastation.

“I had fears about it but essentially, I knew straight away that we’d clean it up, fix it up and we’d get ourselves selling books again as soon as possible…It’s taken longer and it’s been way harder than I initially expected but as each day, week, month passed I decided to let go of expectations or time constraints."

"There’s simply been too much to do and aiming for a specific opening date proved too stressful. We’ll be open as soon as we’re ready and that’s the very best we can do, I want it to be as complete as possible,” Ms Morrow explained.

Similar to many other CBD business owners, Sarah has made changes in design and fixtures with the possibility of future floods.

“Like many buildings in the CBD, the shop has been taken back to the bare bones of brick and concrete. We’ve avoided creating cavities of any sort and we’ve opted not to paint the brickwork as it’s still heavy with moisture and needs to keep drying."

"We’re running with trestle tables to create our aisles until we manage to rebuild the centre bays we lost and any new fixtures are made from metal, hardwood or water proof/resistant material. And everything possible is on wheels!” Sarah said.

“We’re looking forward to seeing an end to rebuilding and a return to doing what we love, which is providing great reading for our community. Myself and all of my staff are extremely passionate about all things reading and book related and it’s been a massive relief to see staff back in the shop this week taking stock of the books we saved, to determine the books we lost."

"Our hearts have been melded with our entire community and I’m honoured to say it’s the unwavering support we continue to receive that will ensure we’ll always be back, again, and again, if it comes to it…but like everyone else, we hope to never see that amount of water again,” Ms Morrow concluded.

Hundreds of boxes of books have been safely tucked away high up in the ceiling since that frightful Sunday night in February. While an estimated 50% of the stock was lost, the stock stored in the upper ceiling was just high enough to escape the flood water and the staff have spent the last several days returning it to the sparkling shelves.

Store Manager Sarah Ryan, who has faced huge personal loss in the wake of the disaster, recalls events on the night of the pack up. 

“The night we were here packing up until midnight, I never expected the next day to have lost my job and my home, just like that, overnight."

"I was here at the shop til about midnight but didn’t pack up my house at all. We didn’t think it would flood. We got out with about half an hour to spare of it being in the house. We took a backpack with a few books. Our other thousands of books were destroyed. So, that was hard throwing all those books out, especially working at a bookstore,” Sarah explained.

The Ryan family’s East Lismore home had, during previous flood events, only flooded downstairs however the record-breaking February flood saw water peak above window height on the first floor.

“We won’t be back in our house for six to 12 months but I need routine again. I need to get back amongst people and books and forget about the house for a while. Buy some more books…not too many though,” Sarah laughed.

“We’ve lost some shelving in the shop, it was just too badly damaged, so we have to make do with what we’ve got for now. All the stock we’ll open with is what we saved. There will be sections missing. We packed stock onto the mezzanine and pallet racking which we thought would not go under, in 2017 it wouldn’t have. There will be plenty of new stock coming soon,” Sarah said.

Long-time employee Caz Greene told the Lismore App she has worked for the family-owned business for 15 years and has seen numerous floods in that time.

“There was a flood previous to 2017 where we had water in the shop to the back door and the front. Most of the time, the closest it’s come is the roundabout there on Woodlark Street,” Caz said.

Caz recalls that the bookshop was closed for approximately six weeks after the 2017 inundation.

“It was a big clean up, all the shelves had to be pulled apart and cleaned and put back up again. It came to shoulder height so it didn’t impact on the mezzanine level or ceiling storage. We probably saved about 50% of stock that time, similar to this time,” Caz explained.

“Sarah and Richard and Wendy took over the ownership of the business after the 2017 flood. The previous owner John had been through many floods. They were determined to be resilient and to plan ahead for future floods, that’s the reason we were able to save stock this time around,” Caz added.

Whilst managing the epic flood recovery effort at the Lismore store, the business has also expanded by seizing an opportunity to establish another branch in Ballina, previously the Ballina Bookshop on River Street. This has provided many of the devoted Lismore customers a chance to connect with their book shopping and also support some of the Lismore staff who lost their regular work hours.

Wendy Coates, Sarah Morrow and Richard Morrow sharing mud and smiles during cleanup

Another devoted employee, Kate Muldowney, said she was looking forward to returning to work as, like so many local workers, she has been financially impacted by the disaster and the gap between government support and job reinstatement.

“I got the disaster recovery payment. And Summerland Credit Union has been absolutely amazing because they said, you can’t pay your mortgage - you can have some time off, that’s fine. Since the government payment cut off – it was not a useful timeframe – I’ve had no income. It’s been amazing knowing the shop would reopen and I’d have my job back but it’s been horrible financially,” Kate explained.

Management and staff are especially grateful to customers who have continued to support them by buying online, at the new Ballina shop or by making donations to the library via the Book Warehouse. Many locals also pitched in the night of the pack up and valiantly mucked in for the clean-up once the water had subsided.

Adding more bustle to the increasingly busy Keen Street, the Book Warehouse will be open for regular trading hours Monday to Friday 9 to 530 and Saturdays 9 to 2.

“We might even throw in the occasional Sunday if that works with the markets, just be a bit more flexible,” Store Manager Sarah concluded.

Any day now, the books will return. Stay tuned to the Lismore App to find out when.

Books are many things: lullabies for the weary, ointment for the wounded, armour for the fearful and nests for those in need of a home.

Glenda Millard, Australian author of children’s literature and young adult fiction