There’s a welcoming light shining from a lone shop window inside the Strand Arcade.

Lismore hairdresser Nick Wright has reopened his hair salon, Bobby’s, after two floods.

Inside, it looks like business as usual – products on shelves, black chandeliers hanging from the roof and the signature water feature cascades with clear water.

Nick’s customers sit in comfy chairs and look into shiny mirrors, as Nick chats with them and colours their hair.

After the first flood, Nick opened quickly and had a generator running to power the salon. At the time, there was no hot water, but it didn’t matter to Nick’s customers, because they were happy to have their favourite hairdresser open again.

Then the second (lesser) flood came a month later. Again, Nick evacuated the salon and had to mop up the mess.

Now, with power finally restored to the salon, Nick has been repainting the walls and the phone has been ringing hot with customers booking in.

Nick said getting the salon open again so quickly after the first flood, was largely due to the fact that he camped in the Strand Arcade through the flood.

He and his mum spent three nights and four days living on the mezzanine level of the arcade.

Nick said they had water and food and waited for the flood waters to recede. When they came down on Wednesday morning, Nick was armed with a big ladder, a broom, some exit mould and a fire hose.

He worked in his jocks to clean the shop walls, because he knew he needed clean, dry clothes to put on after being in the cold, muddy water.

Now, after two floods, Nick is happy to be back to business as (almost) usual and is open from 9am to afternoon, Monday to Saturday.

Nick’s flood story

On the day of the February 28 flood, Nick was working in Bobby’s on the Saturday, the day before the flood began.

He didn’t think a flood was going to be problem until that afternoon when his visiting mates said ‘I don’t like how this is looking’.

By Sunday morning, Nick had a ‘gut feeling’ it wasn’t going to be good and with his mum’s help, moved all the furniture up high onto the mezzanine floor and the stock onto high shelves – where he thought it would be enough.

“But then I went out the front of the arcade (onto Molesworth Street) and I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I saw water flowing in rapids.

“My shop is about two feet higher than the front of the arcade. The building was built on a slope and the rear is on a higher level slab.

“So I went back inside to move stock with buckets and scooped the products up.

“Other businesses in the arcade were also moving things. The picture framer helped me lift heavy things onto the landing with a trolley.”

Then he and his mum went up to the mezzanine level to wait it out, with food and water supplies. They had done it before. 

“We were upstairs watching as the water was getting higher and higher, creeping up step by step,” Nick said.

“In the 2017 flood, it only covered three steps. This time it came to the second step from the top.

“The amount of stuff that floated through the arcade was incredible – big sofas and front counters, sailing by really fast.

“I saw electrical items like rice cookers and frying pans and realized the electrical shop across the road must have broken its windows.

“When the water started getting higher, I looked up and saw the front roller door bowing out from the water. 

“The electricity was still on so I was able to get there and open it.

“Through the night the lights were still on I could hear loud bangs like guns going off. It was a combination of things hitting the front door before bobbing around inside

“Many glass windows in the arcade were broken. Ours were ok because the water cold come in through the roller doors.

“Shops with doors closed had three feet high water outside and lots of pressure inside.

“When the water got up to the second step from the top, I got a message saying another two metres is coming, so our escape plan was to get out through an upstairs landing onto the roof

“But, the painters had been painting and I couldn’t get the door open. II was using everything to try to get it open.

“I rang one of the owners and told him we were trapped and couldn’t get out. I asked if I could smash the bottom of his door to get to his office and out to the roof.

“He said use the fire escape and I told him it was 13 foot under water. I was shocked at his response.

“I eventually got the door to the roof open

“I was really concerned because my mum was stressing. Knowing we could get out gave us hope that the SES would come and see us on the roof.

“It gave my mum hope and it helped calm her down. We realized later that the SES would not have come.”

The flood level went to 14.32 metres and Nick eventually came down after three nights.