Recurring Floods, and Other Disasters, Take Their Toll

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email.

“We’re closed for the next few hours but the door is unlocked,” Darren Osmotherly said to rueful chuckles around his boat.

“Closed” was something of an understatement. Mr. Osmotherly’s restaurant in Lower Portland, an hour and a half northwest of Sydney, was mostly underwater.

Crouching on the bow of his boat and ducking under the awning to peer inside, he noticed that the door was open, meaning his furniture could float out.

So he decided to swim inside. Diving down, feeling his way around in the muddy floodwaters, he swung it shut.

He surfaced and called up through an open window that the job was done. One of his friends in the boat bent down and handed him a Red Bull. Leaning on the windowsill to keep his head above the water, he took a drink.

After the nearby Hawkesbury River had flooded in March last year, for the first time in decades, and inundated his restaurant, Mr. Osmotherly, known as “Oz,” had floodproofed his Paradise Cafe. He put all his equipment on wheels and widened the restaurant doors so that he could get it out more easily. He thought he’d done everything he could to prepare for a similar flood this year. But the water peaked about a meter higher in the floods that came earlier this month, rendering much of his preparation useless.

“We got all the stock up onto high shelves, but the water kept coming,” said Deborah Lawson, his partner. “You do everything you can, but your best efforts end up being useless,” she added.

I wrote recently about how governments and residents are struggling to keep up with the increasing frequency and scale of natural disasters. Across Australia, communities like Lower Portland, which have been hit by unprecedented flooding, are having to adapt on the fly, sometimes while up to their necks in water.

Mr. Osmotherly, who had lost about 450,000 Australian dollars in last year’s floods, was determined to save whatever he could of his restaurant. Although the floodwaters had peaked just hours earlier and it would be days before the authorities deemed it safe to return, he and many other residents had decided to stay and protect their homes or businesses.

Before he dived into his restaurant, two friends had removed a window screen to stop it from washing away, scrabbling at it with their feet as they sat on the boat and clung to the roof’s awning. Ms. Lawson recounted how, the previous day, she’d swum inside to roll up the blinds to stop them from getting wet. Every little bit counted.

The community spirit that Australians are known for, banding together in times of disaster, was on full display. As Mr. Osmotherly and his friends inspected his restaurant, locals drop by in boats, sharing news and supplies and offering assistance. A neighbor waded over to have a chat while standing waist-deep in water.

They spent the rest of the day driving around in their boat, checking in on stranded neighbors and ferrying supplies. With phone lines down, they relied on “bush telegraph” communications — messages passed between neighbors passing each other on boats or standing on the edge of riverbanks.

At Mr. Osmotherly’s house, which was on high enough ground to mostly escape damage, a dozen people milled around, some cooking up a mass of bacon and eggs — stock from the restaurant that he had to use up before it spoiled after the power had gone out.

“We’ve got a bit of a temporary soup kitchen going on,” he said. “Everyone looks out for everyone out here. We’re so far away. We can’t rely on emergency services like other people can.”

Besides, he added, helping each other kept them busy and distracted from thinking about what they were going through, how big the losses were.

Still, the last couple of years — bush fires, coronavirus, two consecutive floods — had taken its toll on the community, even as it had bonded people through adversity. Determination that they could survive anything warred with an undercurrent of fear of escalating disasters to come.

Even before the floodwaters had receded, Mr. Osmotherly was already thinking about how to better prepare for the next one: getting generators so that if the power goes out, his stock from the restaurant doesn’t spoil, as it did this time; making sure that his restaurant can be easily hosed out. His motto: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

But the thought of dealing with this again — in a year, in two months, he didn’t know — pulled him up short. “I can’t — like, if it keeps happening yearly, this —” He stopped. Changed the subject.

But leaving wasn’t on the table for him. Nor was it for anyone else in the tight-knit community.

“They all call me ‘pops.’ Where else would I live?” said Keith Jonsen, 79, sitting outside Mr. Osmotherly’s house. His home had been inundated in the 2021 flood, and the caravan he had subsequently moved into was submerged in this year’s. But he hoped he would be able to return to it soon, he said. “Or Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?” he said. “I don’t have one.”

Now for this week’s stories.

Australia and New Zealand

• Another ‘One-in-500-Year’ Flood, and a Government Not Up to the Task. Civilians were largely left to rescue one another as a natural disaster struck Australia. It shows how the authorities are struggling to respond to climate-fueled calamities.

• China and Solomon Islands Draft Secret Security Pact, Raising Alarm in the Pacific.The leaked agreement, if signed, could help the Chinese Navy block shipping routes that played a vital role in World War II.

• In Reversal, Australia Agrees to Send Offshore Refugees to New Zealand. Under the arrangement, first offered in 2013, New Zealand will take in 150 refugees a year for three years from Australia’s widely criticized detention system.

• Founder of Australia’s Hillsong Church Resigns Amid Scandals. Brian Houston was accused of breaching the church’s code of conduct after two women said he had behaved inappropriately.

• Creating Space Command, Australia Strengthens High-Tech Bond With U.S.The expanded commitment to space defense reflects the reality of a new, extraterrestrial landscape for war.

• Hillsong Church Says Brian Houston, Its Founder, Breached Code of Conduct. The board of the global megachurch, which got its start in Australia, apologized “unreservedly” to two women who had accused Mr. Houston of inappropriate behavior.

Around the Times

• No Longer in Russia. More than 400 companies have withdrawn, at least temporarily, from Russia since it invaded Ukraine. Some have been there since the fall of communism — symbols of the enduring power of Western culture and commerce.

• Their Family Business? The Other Dimension. The Parapsychology Foundation — a four-generation matrilineal dynasty — fights for its future.

• Brain Implant Allows Fully Paralyzed Patient to Communicate. Letter by painstaking letter, a man in a completely locked-in state was able to formulate words and sentences using only his thoughts.

• How to Live to 100. For one sturdy wartime survivor, living intensely has been the best revenge.

Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.

For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group.