Recovery efforts are ramping up in northern New South Wales in the wake of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred. The premier Chris Minns has been in the region announcing new recovery centres will open their doors to people needing to get back on their feet.
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00:00Today, we've heard from the New South Wales Government that they're transitioning from
00:05disaster response into recovery.
00:09That transition is underway now.
00:11We've heard today that four recovery centres are opening in Lismore, Ballina, the Tweed
00:18and Coffs Harbour to help people get back on their feet if they were affected by Tropical
00:23Cyclone Alfred.
00:24We've heard that there are still around 2,800 properties without power at the moment, but
00:30that's down from about 45,000 homes at the peak of this natural disaster.
00:36One of the emerging issues is that of Pine Street and the houses here in Lismore that
00:42are subject to flooding.
00:44What we've seen in Lismore in recent months is a group of people move into one street
00:49in particular and really campaign to be allowed to stay in these houses.
00:54They're known colloquially as the Pine Street Squatters, but the Premier has said this week
01:01that being in those houses that the Government bought back for safety reasons is posing a
01:07risk to their safety in the event of future floods and also the safety of SES volunteers
01:12who might be sent to rescue them.
01:15Because of that risk, he's made the decision now to demolish those houses.
01:20That's come as a blow not just to the people who are currently living there, albeit illegally,
01:26but also to some in the wider community.
01:29These are historic homes that really speak to the legacy of Lismore.
01:34The Premier was asked about that at his press conference today, but he said that the situation
01:39as it stands at the moment is intolerable.
01:43The original intention from the community was to relocate those homes to higher ground.
01:48I'm just being honest about it, it's not practical to do that, particularly when you've got a
01:51situation where so many people, potentially up to 100, are just moving into those houses.
01:56So we're left with an intolerable situation where those houses will be on flood-prone
02:00lands for an extended period of time, more people would move into it, the situation would
02:04become more dangerous.
02:05I had to make a decision here and the decision is I want to make that area as safe as possible
02:10and it's not practical to relocate 500 to 800 homes to higher land.
02:16If we could do it on a scale, on a smaller scale, that's fine, but I'm not going to do
02:21it at the expense of leaving people in harm's way.
02:24From the people I spoke to today, there is very much a sense that the community here
02:29has dodged a bullet.
02:30While some people certainly have suffered significant losses as a result of this natural
02:35disaster, the effects that we've seen are nothing like the widespread and catastrophic
02:41impacts of the 2022 floods and people are relieved to see that we've not seen disaster
02:47on that scale once again.