The Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) will today publicly release their “comprehensive flood hazard mapping” – the data that is being used to determine eligibility for buybacks, house raising, or retrofitting.

Residents have been eagerly waiting since the Resilient Homes Program was announced last October, to see what part of the scheme they will be eligible for.

It is understood the mapping will show which streets and houses fall into the red zone, orange zone, yellow zone and green zone – with red being for homes at most risk.

The Lismore App was invited to a briefing with NRRC CEO David Witherdin ahead of the release of the data mapping this afternoon.

“We're using that [data] to support the decisions we make around the prioritisation for the Resilient Homes Program,” Mr Witherdin said.

“We've compiled this hazard mapping, that provides us absolute consistency in evidence-based decision making, so we can determine those homes that present the greatest risk to life in most floods.”

“We've had an expert consultant working for us on these, we've compiled the latest flood studies from across each of the seven local government areas, also flood studies that have been undertaken by the Department of Planning and Environment.”

“In floods with high depths with high velocities, they present the greatest risk to life in those floods, they’re also the greatest risk of structural failure and properties being washed away.”

“That [risk] isn't just to the residents in those properties, but also to the emergency response agencies who may have to respond.”

As of Monday 5 June, there have been 6,471 registrations for the program, with only 1,213 of those being notified what they are eligible for.

The above graphic is the most recent update given by the NRRC for the Resilient Homes Program.

Currently 872 homes have been deemed eligible for a buyback, 296 offers have been made to residents, and 131 have accepted the offer.

Mr Witherdin last year predicted there would be around 2,000 homes eligible for a buyback, however today that number has dropped to 1,100.

“We anticipate by the end of this month to be making offers for the purchase of around 1,100 homes, so really significant in its scale,” he said.

“[This] will make a very material difference in terms of reducing the risk profile there for this community into the future.”

“We really will provide opportunities for people to get out of what are some of the highest flood hazard locations in the country, and areas that have significant risk to life.”

“Information will be published today, with a lot of whole lot of supporting materials, so people can under understand how to interpret those maps.”

“Then we will continue to make contact with everybody who's registered for the program over the course of the remainder of this month, so they can understand their relative priority for funding under the program.”

The Lismore App understands that most people in the ‘red zone’ will be offered a buyback. However, despite all the data being released today, residents will still need to wait until officially approached by the NRRC to know their exact eligibility.

There are some instances that residents in the ‘orange zone’ may also be offered a voluntary purchase offer.

“Homes that were destroyed by either of the two floods last year, or suffered major structural damage that it was an uneconomical to repair them, were eligible for the program,” Mr Witherdin said.

“Those properties that were so damaged… that correlates very neatly in most instances with those with those hazard maps, but not in all.”

“You can get quite unique circumstances that, even though somebody might be in the highest hazard area, because of the dynamics of that particular flood, you get really extensive damage, and this program picks up that.”

“Going forward, what we need to do to really ensure we get maximum utility from this program, in terms of reducing as much risk to life as we can… this is the tool that's been developed to guide our how we move forward with the program.”

The Lismore App will have further analysis of the program, maps, and data, once the information is released to the public this afternoon.