‘I can’t afford to go anywhere else’: the NSW caravan park residents devastated by floods

In their simple home on the banks of the Tweed River, Peter and Linda Bale sat on the couch in ankle-deep water, trying not to panic.

Outside, the streets that criss-cross the sprawling Chinderah caravan parks had become canals, another scene of horror in the New South Wales' Northern Rivers disaster.

"We could just feel it creeping up our legs," Linda tells the Guardian, fighting back tears. "It was coming up so fast."

For Peter, there was an added complication.

He is fighting stage four lung cancer, diagnosed as terminal. For two hours, his breathing grew increasingly strained as the floodwaters rose.

Their saviour came in an unlikely form. A jetski appeared outside, ridden by a stranger.

It was Api Robin, the husband of comedian Celeste Barber.

"I had the cats, both of them in a cat cage and tied them onto the mat on the back of the jetski, and I had one of our little dogs in front of me, squashed in between me and him," Linda says.

"Over the roar of the water and the jetski, all I could hear was [the cats screeching]."

On Tuesday, under a stifling sun and blue skies, Linda and Peter returned to survey the damage.

Like all visitors to the park, they were greeted by a grim spectacle.

Along the road leading into the park, was a wall, seemingly never-ending, of destroyed furniture, waterlogged mattresses, mouldy clothes, and useless white goods.

A staggering 180 of the 220 permanent sites were inundated. More than 300 residents were affected. Even more were destroyed at Chinderah's other four caravan parks, all located in a two kilometre arc around the riverbank.

It is devastation on a confounding scale.

Most in these parks did not have much before the floods. Now, they have been left with nothing, save for the clothes on their backs.

"It's just devastating," Linda says. "You've been inside, that's our life, in those boxes. That's what's left."

Very few residents could afford the exorbitant cost of flood insurance in the low-lying caravan parks. The Bales were quoted $10,000 per year, a figure well out of reach, even before the costs associated with Peter's cancer.

Now, residents are left with an invidious choice. Without insurance money, attempting to buy a new home away from the floodplain is not an option for most.

But the parks have flooded twice in five years.

Many have no option but to stay, attempt to rebuild, and hope, against all global heating predictions, that the next floods don't come so soon.

Heather Emmett has been in the park for six years. Her home was ruined in both 2017 and 2022.

But when the Guardian encounters her, riding her white bicycle through the park, she is a picture of optimism.

"I don't know what I'm going to be doing. Maybe riding off into the sunset on my bike, with a bottle of wine in my backpack," she laughs.

"We just get ourselves up, shake ourselves off, and start all over again."

Emmett has been staying with her close friend, Debbie Prater, away from the park. Her future remains uncertain.

"As soon as it happened, I said 'I'm out of here, I'm gone'. But I don't have enough money or equity or anything," she said.

"It was insured because I bought it cheap, but it's not insured enough for the prices that they are now. And there would be so many people who would be in the same boat."

"They have to stay where they are."

Prater is the same. She only bought her home in the caravan park 12 months ago, after moving from Armidale to be closer to family.

"I can't afford to go anywhere else, just yet," she says.

She has no flood insurance. "I was a giver, so I never had any money left at all, with my kids and various things," she said.

There is almost universal frustration and puzzlement at the lack of official government response in the parks.

Most residents who spoke to the Guardian said they hadn't seen anyone from the government or the military who had come to help. One resident said she saw a State Emergency Service vehicle drive around the park and then leave.

The absence of government services is particularly bewildering, given many across the six caravan parks are in dire need of financial assistance.

But, like so many places in the Northern Rivers disaster zone, volunteers have stepped into the breach.

A group of volunteers were busy cleaning and drying the Bales' remaining possessions on Tuesday. They turned up from nowhere and got straight to work.

Meanwhile, their friend, Tanya Slaven, was busy scrubbing the walls of mould on Tuesday. Peter's lung cancer makes cleaning it particularly crucial.

Slaven has also set up a GoFundMe to help raise money for the pair, and her uncle and aunt have put up the Bales while they get back on their feet.

"It's hard for them to accept it. But finally they are," she said.

John Anderson, who is helping to manage Tweeds Shores and Chinderah Lakes parks' disaster response, can barely keep it together when asked about the work of the volunteers.

He said there is assistance coming from the state government for uninsured residents.

But Anderson has a simple message for the nation's leaders. Something must be done about climate change, or the disaster scenes playing out at the parks will become an inevitable regularity.

"I wish they'd start getting real," he said.