Kate was waiting for emergency services. She was saved by a man on a jetski 

When artist Kate Stroud was rescued from her home in Lismore during the devastating 2022 floods, the water in her kitchen was neck-high. It wasn’t emergency personnel that came to her aid, but a civilian from Ballina who arrived on his jetski.

On the night of the flood, Stroud had been visited by an SES person who told her “you will be safe here, expect water at your gate at midday tomorrow”. But when she began looking at social media and hearing from others in the area, a very different picture emerged. The flood would eventually reach a record height of 14.4 metres.

“Within a matter of hours we were having water coming through our floorboards. It was too late for us to leave by then, so we didn’t have the accurate information to make an informed decision. We called SES and could not get through. We called Triple Zero, and they told us to call SES.

“Later we found out that [the SES] were so overwhelmed and under-resourced that they actually physically turned that communication line off. The lady on the Triple Zero line, I could hear the defeat in her voice. She couldn’t tell me what to do, which was pretty full-on. [It was] a real loss of innocence for me because I believed that these systems were set up so that when the unthinkable happens, the ‘adults’ would come and help us.”

Stroud is the presenter speaking to other flood survivors in the independent documentary When the River Rose, a powerful look at what happened during the floods and also in the aftermath. “It’s a piece about human impact when climate disasters occur,” says director Catherine Barker. “It’s about how it can affect us, not just in that moment … but for years to come.”

This is Barker’s first film. The 48-year-old was living in Lismore at the time of the floods, though her house was unaffected. She’d had a long career in the entertainment industry, working on lighting for big-budget movies and later moving into other roles in the Australian TV industry. But she had since worked in community services for several years.

Barker said she’d always felt she had a film in her, but it would have to be something of the utmost importance to draw her back.

“Honestly, I was so compelled to do this because of all the stories,” says Barker. “Everyone you spoke to had a multitude of stories of frustration and devastation. I just wanted to ensure that future generations have something captured – a reference point – because there are still plenty of people who don’t believe in climate change and don’t believe that these things have occurred because of that.”

The indie doco has been showing at film festivals and sold-out screenings, picking up awards internationally at the Barcelona Planet Film Festival and the GRU International Film Awards in Brazil. But it’s now set to have its Australian TV premiere on the ABC. For both Stroud and Barker, this is a very proud moment and one they hope may affect larger systemic change.

“I believe that when you dig deep into people’s lived experience, it humanises these events,” says Stroud. “It’s really easy for us to be a statistic in a spreadsheet or a line-marking on a wall of water depth. The thing that is missed is that this impacts people on such a deep level and fundamentally changes you for life.

“If we can continue the conversation, hopefully people will never have to feel that feeling that we all felt: when we were waiting for boats that were never coming. Hopefully, this will ruffle the feathers of people that are in positions of power to make the changes that are necessary.”

When the River Rose airs at 8.30pm on Tuesday on the ABC and ABC iview.

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