NSW Premier says four recovery centres will open today

ABC NEWS (Australia)

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.

Transcript

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.

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