With roads cut off, farms drenched and properties damaged, residents in the NSW Hunter region are determined to stay put and recover after devastating floods hit the area.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Jodie McCosker moved to a farm at Millers Forest, near Maitland, with her family less than two months ago and is now flooded in.
"We can't get out because our driveway is still underwater," she said on Tuesday.
"It just didn't stop raining. They said the rivers were going to come up and they certainly did," she told AAP from the muddy acreage.
It was the second-worst flooding on record in the region where several towns such as Maitland and Singleton were inundated.
Her young son's room was hit the hardest as the water rose quickly and there's still no hot water almost a week after the drenching.
Ms McCosker, who works in the hospitality industry with her husband, described how the wailing cries of cattle on her farm and other animals during the battering rain was frightening in a dark house with no electricity.
"Now it's a matter of getting the place liveable again downstairs," she said.
At its height, the flooding of the Hunter River and its tributaries affected 40,000 people.
One of those isolated in their home with closed roads was 62-year-old Joanne Daley who was distressed being unable to see her elderly father in a nursing home about 20 kilometres away.
Tuesday was the first time she was able to leave her Nelson Plains property, close to the Hunter River, to visit him.
"As soon as council opened up the road, we went and saw him then we got dog food and food for us because we ran out of supplies last night," the relieved mortgage broker told AAP.
Her home was spared but she said she and her daughter have been trapped for six days waiting for the floodwaters to recede.
"The whole farm was a lake and the house was like an island," Ms Daley said.
"We didn't suffer ... but the worst part was the isolation because you can't go anywhere. No one understands that."
After living in the area for 25 years, Ms Daley said the floods had bought her small, tight-knit community even closer and she remains committed to staying in the flood-prone area.
"We couldn't go to each other's houses because of the water but we all checked in on each other everyday," she said.
"We're all in the same boat. We're not moving because we're a great little community."
Australian Associated Press
