Jennifer Pittorino
Maribyrnong resident Paul Lau said the events of October 14, 2022 still remain vivid in his mind, images he describes as a “horror movie”.
“We are still struggling with this traumatic event. We had never experienced anything like this before,” Paul said, almost one year on from the day his home flooded.
“Every time we see rain it brings up trauma and anxiety.”
Paul and his wife Jackie Wong migrated from Vietnam in 1985 and, until last year, they have lived in the same home on Clyde Street since 1990.
Their daughter Stephanie Wonglau said the last year had been challenging for them all, the hardest part of which has been watching her parents lose so much.
“Their home is symbolic of so much, being former refugees from Vietnam, this experience has been quite traumatising and triggering their lived experiences of displacement,” said Stephanie.
“People have lost everything, my parents have lost everything. “My parents have lost a significant majority of their possessions that they’ve accrued over 30 years. They have lived in that home for so many years, and in a day it was all gone.”
In the early hours of that October day, Paul recalls he and his wife were awoken by the SES moments before water infiltrated their home.
“I rushed to remove my cars and what I could to high ground and by the time I ran home the water was starting to come in.”
Paul describes the following events as shocking.
“The water started coming up from the floorboards. I watched my TV get submerged and couldn’t do anything.”
Paul said he and his wife frantically attempted to save their belongings for as long as they could as the water rose around them, exhausting them to collapse.
For the past year, Paul and his wife have been living in temporary accommodation, a rental property which Stephanie found for them.
“That has been reimbursed by insurance but not without challenge,” she said.
For most affected families, dealing with insurance has been one of the biggest challenges, something Paul describes as extremely stressful.
“We don’t have the experience to deal with the insurance claim process, no one ever explained anything us including the whole process,” he said.
“It is traumatic enough to deal with the flood, to go through the insurance claim process is another thing.
“It has been a year and we don’t know when we will be back.”
A year on and Stephanie said her parents still need help to get back on their feet.
“They need insurance, council and governments to understand that they have been significantly displaced,“ she said.
“This has had wide reaching impacts on their well being, physical and mental health.
“What we need is change. A genuine, concerted effort to manage a long standing climate issue to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Although this has been an incredibly tough year for Paul and his wife, he said he owes so much to his community.
“I would like to say a big thank you to the people on Flood Warriors Facebook Group, I am really grateful for their help,“ he said multiple times.
“I am indebted to them, and I wish I could do anything to repay them. I would love to meet these people and If I had a chance thank them in person.
“My wife and I would be nowhere without our daughter, she has helped us more than we can thank her for.”
