Two Years On from the 14.4m flood that ripped through Lismore and the Northern Rivers, the Lismore App is asking those in positions of power how they perceive the 730 days of the rescue, the recovery and the rebuild.

LISMORE MAYOR STEVE KRIEG

"I'm really proud of the city of Lismore and its residents, the business owners and the council staff."

"I couldn't be more proud of our staff at council. They've really worked hard in the recovery process and making sure all the essential services have been up and running and things that you might not think are essential. But having a pop-up library is really important for people's emotional well-being. Being able to provide that sort of service is really invaluable."

"People need to understand the extent of damage to our key infrastructure, like our wastewater sewage treatment plant. It was so extensively damaged and virtually written off, but our staff have been able to get that running. It is on life support but our council staff keep it going."

"Council was granted $110 million to fix and upgrade our sewage treatment plants at East Lismore and South Lismore. Unfortunately, we haven't seen a cent of that yet."

"Our council really wants to be a part of that rebuild as it's going to be a council asset for many decades. We really want to be involved in the planning and the build of that really critical piece of infrastructure which will cater for the growth of the city into the future. But as yet, unfortunately, Public Works is in charge of that project and Lismore City Council is doing everything it can to be involved in that project but at the moment nothing's progressing."

"There is one thing that really is a glaring oversight as far as the Reconstruction Authority is concerned. To rebuild a sewage treatment plant is at best three years and they've announced the 400 blocks as part of the Resilient Lands Program which needs a direct linkage to our East Lismore sewage treatment plant, which is on life support. So we could have 400 blocks released in two years but no essential services like sewage and water being able to be hooked up because they haven't started the rebuild there yet.

"These are the sorts of things that probably needed to be discussed with the council that weren't. Communication is getting better between the Reconstruction Authority and Lismore City Council but obviously these sorts of key infrastructure projects should have been started 6 or 12 months ago if the Resilient Lands project was going to be seen as a major success for the city."

"There's going to be a lot of frustrated people in two years time when there's beautiful new blocks of land and the opportunity to relocate their old hardwood timber homes is there but we might have to go back to the old horse and cart days where we run along and pick up the full buckets five o'clock in the morning. That's the laughable situation that we find ourselves in, unfortunately.

The reality is that the bigger picture planning and programming haven't aligned and there are going to be delays that could have been avoided in hindsight. We're all learning from this experience, and it's one of those things that we just have to get better at in the future. And as I've said many, many times, hopefully, the learnings from the Lismore model will be implemented far better for other regions that have to recover from a major disaster into the future."

Has the last two years been about learning?

"There has been a lot of behind-the-scenes work, a lot of policy writing, a lot of legislation that has to be implemented, and it's stuff that you can't physically see on the ground but we know the state and federal government have been working on those aspects."

"If we don't learn from the Lismore experience, if we don't get better at disaster recovery, from what we've lived through, then we're not as smart as we think we are. Things like aligning infrastructure rebuilds with the release of land should be considered immediately for it to work properly and for people not to get frustrated and annoyed like they have been feeling in this city.

Where would you like to see us in 12 months if we have this conversation again?

"I earmarked 2024 as the year of getting stuff done. The first two years, as we've said, have been a lot of behind-the-scenes work. I would like really to see a lot of the the key road infrastructure work started as far as landslip repairs and road repairs are concerned. We have to get our infrastructure, like our sewage treatment plant, underway."

"It's really heartening to see some of the old homes over in North Lismore start to move off the floodplain. It would be good to see a little bit more of that happening and talking to some of those homeowners, they've gone through the DA process through council and have found it far easier than dealing with the Reconstruction Authority. I'd love to see our CBD with a greater occupancy rate. I'd love to see new investment coming into the town in the form of industry and manufacturing."

"Lismore is the best place in Australia to live. I'd love to see our airport functioning. It would be good to be able to announce an AFL preseason game at Oaks Oval, a BBL or a WBBL game. Things that really draw tourism to our city and kick-start the economy. "It would be good to roll out a Lismore City Master Plan in the next 12 months as well."

"So, there's a lot of exciting things that could happen in the next 12 months. I'll be working, along with the other councillors, and council staff to try and make those things a reality. But we really need the community support behind us. There are a lot of things churning through my mind as to what the next 12 months will hold."

"I've got to get through a local government election in amongst all that too. I might not be the mayor in six months. It might be up to someone else to do. But, I'm still committed, and I'm still focused and I'm still driven to get Lismore back into the heart of the Northern Rivers and make it the best regional centre in the country. As long as the people entrust me to be the mayor of the city, that's what I'll be striving to do."