Flood

It is with much gratitude that our team thanks the team at Renew, particularly Sam Cope, for assistance provided to date and for their ongoing support to bring information to our community to ensure we rebuild to be flood resilient.  Encourage friends and family with flood damaged homes to do what they need to get their home in a safe liveable state but no more.

Those insured need to consider the money available to settle their claim may well be the last insurance money they will be able to access so putting these funds towards the costs of making the changes required to avoid future disaster is a very good idea to consider whilst waiting for rectification work to begin.

In Issue 56 of Renew's Sanctuary Magazine, James Davidson's work from JDA.Co in Brisbane is featured.

Rather than seeking to keep floodwaters out, James’s approach to flood-resilient design is to ensure water that enters the house won’t damage the materials and can be flushed out quickly to allow the structure to dry out and the family to move back in. “By ‘building better before’ a flood event rather than rectifying damage once a house has been flooded, we can significantly reduce the waste materials sent to landfill,” he says.

Our Community Engagement Officer, Sasha Mainsbridge, has been in discussion with James by phone about how the Northern Rivers can short cut its Residential Flood Adaption Action by learning from builders and architects in SEQ.   For now everyone is still in crisis response mode so a gathering date can't yet be set but James has offered the services of one of his team to come down in the next few weeks to chat with key stakeholders and discuss the best way forward.  James would come himself but amidst all that is happening his wife is due to give birth to their fourth child so it's unlikely he can make it!

Here are some links to get our community thinking about what needs to be done, using what materials, considering the different ways storm and flood water enters homes and how these are approached differently and the myriad of other tasks we must undertake as individuals, communities, council officers, community workers, councillors and state and federal government actors.

If you own a home in the Byron Shire that needs to be adapted to avoid loss in future floods Mullum Cares has a registration form as the first step in the long process to achieve Residential Flood Adaptation.  Sign up below.