The Elijkmans get the best Christmas present, back in their home after the Eugowra flood.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 What happened on the day that the flood came in?
00:03 Yeah, we were down at the flat parcel, grabbing a coffee, and we were told we were safe where we were.
00:09 Never touched water here before, and came in and we had a cup of coffee and we were looking out the window and Isla said,
00:16 "Mum, there's a lot of water coming down the road."
00:19 And we saw our neighbours start running and Graham next door ran across our front lawn and knocked on the window and just went, "Hurry and get us out."
00:26 So we popped the dogs inside and jumped in our ute and we got probably two houses down.
00:32 The water when we got in was only that, so we thought we were pretty safe to get to the showground.
00:36 And the first wave hit and it went over the bonnet and so Niant put me, Noah and Isla in the tray of the ute.
00:47 We got to the end of the road and the Prime Mover turned right towards the showground and we got washed into a house.
00:56 And we were up against the house, the car started spinning around.
01:00 I got out of the passenger seat onto the roof and helped get this lot up onto the roof.
01:07 Then another house came and hit the car and pushed us through a pine tree and ripped me and the son off the roof onto the bonnet.
01:15 We were lucky we got lodged against another pine tree and we managed to climb that and we were up that tree for a good four to five hours.
01:23 I had no real idea where they were, we knew they were safe, but that was the scariest part I think.
01:28 When we got to the showground there was this lovely man we'd never actually laid eyes on before called John Dukes.
01:33 And he had Noah in one hand and Isla in the other. They wouldn't let go of him.
01:38 We saw him on the 14th and said, "It's been 12 months, are you ready to babysit?"
01:42 And he said, "Yes." The kids really love him.
01:45 How does it feel getting back into your house now after all of that?
01:49 Yeah, it was a long year. It was a difficult year. But it's great being back, definitely. Just before Christmas too. It's really good.
01:59 Good for the kids too. They're a lot more settled and calm and sleeping, which is really nice.
02:04 We've taken out a few walls here and there and raised a few rooms and changed the flooring.
02:10 And the kitchen, we've made it a bit more open plan so we're all together now. It's a lot better than what it was for sure.
02:18 Yeah, it's silver lining. Very lucky.
02:20 Yeah, just got to work on the outside now.
02:23 [Laughs]
02:24 Yeah.
02:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]