AFTER THE RAIN...

In Coraki in the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers of NSW, The Weekly meets a team of veterans offering hope and healing while salvaging homes and lives.

- SUSAN CHENERY

In the weeks after the New South Wales floods, the town of Coraki was still a wasteland. For as far as you could see, the ground was brown, as if it had been scorched rather than flooded. The waters had receded, and the stench of overflowing sewage and rotting animal corpses had abated but still lingered. What remained were the shells of ruined houses and the shattered lives of the people. A people for whom the most fundamental thing, their home, had been ripped away from them in such a violent way. In the enervating, flattening heat, it was a desolate place - wounded, broken, scarred. Army trucks were in the streets throwing mud and sewage-covered belongings into skips. There was still no electricity in a lot of the houses.

"The devastation in this small community is horrific,” says Sergeant Tory Tipler, who serves with the Royal Australian Air Force and volunteers with Disaster Relief Australia (DRA). “All the houses have been inundated with mud - people have lost so much stuff.”

Kerry Khan has lost everything. The water came right through the home she and her family have lived in for 20 years. All four of their cars went under. She and her husband are staying an hour away in a two-bedroom flat with seven people, including a four-year-old child. Their animals are farmed out with friends.

“All of our furniture is gone; we have no beds, stove, nothing to sit on. They are coming on Friday to take out most of our walls.” She is being helped by Tory and the volunteers at Disaster Relief Australia, a not-for-profit organization that deploys thousands of military veterans to large-scale disasters in Australia and around the world. “They cleared everything upstairs," says Kerry. “Anything that could be salvaged, they tried to salvage and put aside for me. They just got stuck in and didn't stop.”