Our isolated island home: stranded Gunnedah locals recount flood experience

Journalist Marie Low lives on the flooded northern side of the Namoi River along the Orange Grove Road, with her husband John (Snapper) and teenage daughter Rosie. Marie sent this report and photos on Monday morning.

We are isolated for the fourth time in the past couple of months and are expecting this one to last a while.

Along with our neighbours, we were isolated for about 10 days during the flood last November but we were lucky enough to have a helicopter drop off food for which we were very grateful.

It’s a bit embarrassing to think you are stocked up but still run out of milk on the third or fourth day – luckily, we have plenty of long-life milk and a well-stocked pantry.

This flood has been higher than the one late last year, and our neighbours tell us it is the highest they have seen on Orange Grove Road in the 18 years they have lived here.

We have lived here for nine years, and much of that has been drought.

When we woke on Saturday morning, the water was lapping at the house pad at about the same height it was last year, and it was continuing to rise.

We saw on social media that people were already getting water through their houses in Gunnedah.

Even though logic tells you the water has to come up a fair bit to get to the house, it is still scary going to sleep knowing you are surrounded by water, can’t get out, and don’t know how high the water will rise.

By Saturday night, it was higher than we had seen it before, and we moved the chickens up to the house garden. The chicken coop was flooded.

On Sunday morning, the water had not come up much higher. It has not receded at all since then.

We took the tractor through the paddock as far as the road on Sunday. Orange Grove Road was completely flooded, with the water flowing rapidly. Cattle on ours and neighbouring properties have found bits of high ground to keep out of the water.

We are sharing our little island with three people, two cats, about 23 chickens (including 12 chicks), three guinea fowl and two parrots.

It’s not an ideal situation, but our thoughts are with those who have had damage to their homes and belongings – some of them for the third or fourth time this year.