The Brennans expected a flood, but they weren’t warned of a catastrophe

With the muddy, churning Manning River swirling around him, Paul Brennan had one thought: swim.

Metres away, his pet goat, Georgie, was being swept away, the jet ski they’d fallen from out of reach.

Hauling himself onboard beside the stranger who had appeared out of nowhere to help him find his missing goats, he circled back and dragged Georgie by the collar. As quickly as he was there, the stranger, Bruce, was gone.

“It was like a miracle,” Paul Brennan said.

“This guy just turned up on a jet ski.”

Whisking their goats to safety would be one of the last things Paul and his wife Liz would do before they were winched to safety as the water began to flood their Oxley Island home on the outskirts of Taree.

“We’re very grateful,” Liz said moments after emergency services flew them into town.

For two days, the Brennans were isolated without power or running water as the Manning swelled, closing roads and cutting them off from Taree.

When the heavy rain started, they expected to weather the worst of the flooding, as they had in 2021, when their home was spared major damage.

But, as record-breaking rainfall saturated their property, and the water rose around them, they were unable to leave.

“It just kept coming and coming and coming,” Paul said.

“As it started to go dark last night, the water started trickling into the house.”

Like others in Taree, the Brennans say they were given little warning of the catastrophe that was approaching.

“There was nothing untoward Monday evening, and we thought ‘OK, [it will be] a mild to moderate flood so we’ll move everything out first thing in the morning’,” Liz said.

“That was too late. By the time we got up in the morning, it was halfway up our driveway and coming. The river was rising.”

The entire community has been caught off-guard by the catastrophic flooding, Liz said, with warnings coming far too late for some, and not at all for others.

“The farmers still had cows in the paddocks,” Liz said.

“Normally they’re the first to move them out. As soon as they’re gone to higher land, you know. But they got caught.”

The Brennans had regularly monitored emergency services warnings, and expected only minor flooding until conditions changed rapidly. By the time they left, water had covered the floor of their home.

“It turns around very quickly and it suddenly is not in your drive,” Liz said.

“It’s like a rapid outside. It’s going past so fast.”

As the water around Taree starts to recede, the Brennans, who evacuated with only their laptops, phones, some clothes and their pug, Trixie, are expecting the worst.

“[We have] a fair idea of what’s going to be there,” Liz said.

Up the road from the Brennans’ home, Deanna Brookhouse, her husband, Kevin, and their daughter, Matilda, have begun a clean-up at Old Bar Beach, where the carcasses of several cows and hundreds of kilograms of debris have been washed up.

Locals expect the worst of the weather has passed, but are questioning why they were left in the dark until it was too late.

On dry land, though, the Brennans are grateful for the emergency services personnel who evacuated them safely, and thinking of Taree residents who they say have it much worse than them.

“It was relief,” Liz said.

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