In northern NSW, Lismore is just as proud of its floods.

Three years ago, Lismore City Council spent nearly $300,000 on a CBD sculpture, Alternating Current, by Queensland artist Paul Johnson. It incorporates a stylised skeleton of the Ark and the town's underwater history while handily keeping an electrical substation high and dry above the highest flood level.

Alternating Current, by Queensland artist Paul Johnson. Photo: Janie Barrett

The sculpture is just across the road from the junction of Wilsons River and Leycester Creek. They built the town there partly because the width and deep water allowed coastal traders coming up from the Richmond River for cedar, bananas, cheese and cream to turn around for the voyage back to the sea. Heavy rain off surrounding hills fed the creeks and rivers, especially after they cleared the Big Scrub, and Lismore regularly went under water.

There have been 27 major floods since 1870, with water threatening the town big time in 1954, 1974 (peaking at 12.11 metres both years) and 1989 (11.2 metres) but in 2005, a $20,000,000 flood levee was built. It was designed to protect the CBD from a one-in-10-year flood. Four years later, in 2009, the levee stood steadfast as water reached 10.4 metres.

But last autumn, heavy rainfall from ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie drenched north coast NSW catchments - dropping about 700 millimetres in two days - and in the hours before dawn, at 4.03am, Friday, March 31, Lismore's 10.65-metre levee wall was overtopped.

Five months later the water has long gone but the town's been hung out to dry.

Lismore is still full of fear and loathing. Some might have "Debbie Does Lismore" T-shirts but residents are outraged that the State Emergency Service and the Bureau of Meteorology ignored local SES volunteers and their local knowledge and instead panicked, ordering the CBD to be evacuated at least six hours before floodwaters swept through the business and shopping precincts.

Few businesses managed to save stock and equipment. The town is also upset that local SES personnel were made to order the evacuations with the result that about 10 per cent of SES volunteers have left in disgust.

The aftermath of the Lismore flood in April. Photo: Kate Geraghty

There has never been a loss of life from flooding in the Lismore CBD - two-storey buildings kept everybody safe - but many livelihoods have been lost and people have just walked away.

The aftermath of national disasters tends to develop into ongoing arguments about blame and reform but the response of authorities to the Lismore flood is increasingly being revealed as a mixture of Keystone Cops and overreach.

A bland report for the SES by former assistant police commissioner Dave Owensreviewing the SES flood response trod lightly, recommending more bureaucracy, more protocols and more money but between the lines it is possible to see the chaos in the SES Richmond Tweed Region HQ and the SES HQ in Wollongong, with senior officers unsure of who was in charge; staff shortages and inexperienced staff; and long lapses between receiving Bureau of Meteorology information and the issuing of warnings and alerts.

SES Commissioner Mark Smethurst says Owens' report was an opportunity for the service to demonstrate its ability to serve its communities throughout the state.

"The NSW SES has already implemented several of the recommendations in the review such as formalising a new process for the issuing of evacuation warnings and orders, implementing pre-deployable incident management resources, reinforcing fatigue management systems and policy, and closer liaison with the Bureau of Meteorology to have a suitable representative based at the NSW SES State Operations Centre," he says.

However, a report prepared by concerned residents says Owens' portrayal of the response at the Richmond Tweed HQ "reads more like a TV comedy script from Yes Minister or Utopia than a high-quality emergency management team".The locals who wrote the report, including a former mayor, the SES officer in charge in the 1974 flood and an engineer who helped build the levee, tore shreds off the SES for sidelining the Lismore City SES in critical decision-making.

The citizens' report contained a vignette that highlighted the bureaucratic madness that took hold as water edged up the levee:

About midnight three trucks belonging to a South Lismore haulage company that had been donated to help clear stock and equipment from the CBD throughout Thursday were ordered by a policeman to get off a bridge or face a fine, so they drove into the CBD where a barrier prevented their escape. The drivers parked the vehicles and walked away.

"Presumably, the policeman drove from the bridge to safety that way. All that was required was for the barrier to be moved aside whilst the trucks moved through and replaced again," the Citizens' Report said. "But as the water rose the parked fully loaded trucks all went under at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the company despite the road to higher ground being clear."

The NSW government estimates at least 68 per cent of businesses in the Lismore CBD suffered damage and the estimated combined total damage to infrastructure and agriculture was just under $40 million. About 16 per cent of the CBD businesses have not reopened, and a combination of uninsured stock losses, damage to building interiors and equipment, plus lost business has cost individuals from $40,000 to as much as $450,000 in one instance.

An empty shop in Lismore is one of many left vacant after the floods. Photo: Janie Barrett

The federal and NSW governments continue to dribble money into Lismore - a $2.1 million fund to help fund mental health support services and community engagement initiatives was announced by federal Minister for Justice Michael Keenan and NSW Minister for Emergency Services Troy Grant this week - but insurance companies have largely walked away from the town.

Only 2 per cent of CBD businesses had flood insurance and the battle over stormwater versus floodwater continues with at least 20 businesses appealing objections. Further, businesses had difficulties dealing with assessors, and approvals and payouts were glacial.

Lismore mayor Isaac Smith is worried about how long it will take for the city to get back on its feet. He also fears what the long-term and largely unseen psychological effects of living in the shadow of such a big natural catastrophe will have on people's welfare.

"Research shows that these social costs can be two to five times the financial cost of disasters and last for decades," he says.

"Council surveyed businesses in June and found 76 vacant shops out of 481 CBD businesses. We estimated 90 per cent of the closed shops will reopen eventually, but right now the number of empty premises in the city centre is unprecedented and it is impacting on our our ability to recover economically."

'We were were ejected under threat of police intervention'

Wilsons River: There have been 27 major floods in Lismore since 1870. Photo: Janie Barrett

For Lismore, it was a new kind of flood.

Previously, when the Wilsons River was "running a banker", water would seep into town and the residents, having had generations of practice, knew how to cope: They carried stock and equipment upstairs or hauled it home.

But when the levee was overtopped, water mixed with mud, diesel and gunk rushed into town and took a couple of hours to inundate the CBD.

According to residents, someone at SES HQ ordered the first evacuation on Facebook at 11.21pm on March 29 - before heavy rain fell and 28 hours before the levee overtopped.

The following afternoon, at 3.53 pm, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a major flood warning. Seven minutes later the SES issued another evacuation order.

Then at 4.14pm mayor Smith took to his Facebook page and assured all the that levee would not be overtopped: "Major Flooding in Lismore TONIGHT! Possibly 11m during the night which will not go over the levy(sic), but will flood a lot of places around town. Stay safe!'

At 5.38 pm SES HQ in Wollongong sent a text message to Lismore residents: "SES FLOOD EVACUATION ORDER. People in low lying parts of North, South & CBD of Lismore must evacuate immediately". The SES issued a second evacuation order at either 10.30 or 11.30pm (SES reports differ) and with police and SES personnel clearing the CBD, sirens wailed through the night as the town waited for the water.

Lismore mayor Isaac Smith. Photo: Janie Barrett

History protected some businesses.

Kelly McLean, with her husband Todd, owns the Mecca Cafe in Magellan Street. It's been a Lismore staple since 1928 and, when the Gray family moved the business to the present site in 1932, they made it somewhat flood proof; the art deco booths can be dismantled. To save unique, huge hand-coloured photographs of Lismore - including SS Wyrallah berthed at Lismore and an early FX Holden driving along a dirt road - the Grays built a false wall that the hinged pictures could be swung up into, safe and dry.

"We got a lot of stuff upstairs," McLean says. "Of course, the heavy kitchen stuff was floating around but we were selling coffee five days after the flood."

Kelly McLean was able to raise the historic photos in Mecca Cafe so they were above flood level. Photo: Janie Barrett

But wood scientist Graeme Palmer and DPI technician Janice Palmer were denied such preparations. They took over the family china, jewellery and giftware business, Shoppe One 17 in Keen Street, six weeks before the flood hit and want to know "who the bloody fool" was who ordered the evacuation too early.

"We started packing at 9am on Thursday, March 30," Graeme Palmer says. "We followed our plan until 6pm when the first SES officers entered and warned the evacuation was likely to occur within two hours - a full six hours before our prediction of a nine-metres flood peak, based on river rate rises. At 8pm were were ejected under threat of police intervention to force our evacuation.

"We told the workers and family to leave but my wife and I stayed as we feared looting ... we were exhausted till about 1.30am and managed to move a great deal of stock upstairs but not the fixtures or carpets.

Graeme and Janice Palmer in their homewares shop in Lismore. Photo: Janie Barrett

"At 7.30am the first water appeared in the gutter in front of our shop ... and we left for higher ground without getting our feet wet; that was 13 hours after the evacuation order.

"We returned by boat on April Fool's Day ... we estimate losses close to $100,000, modest if compared to some of our near neighbours."

Just down Keen Street, jeweller Jackie Ribbons was uninsured. She lost everything when water inundated her Lismore Rock Shop.

It was pouring rain about lunchtime on Thursday and, watching water pour through the ceiling, Ribbons feared customers would slip so she closed shop about 1pm and headed home to her farm. Late in the afternoon she saw mayor Smith's Facebook post saying the flood would not top the levee so she tried to get back into the CBD to save her gear and stock but was turned back by police.

An SES volunteer herself, even that was not enough to get her into town. The next time she saw her shop it looked like an abandoned, empty swimming pool. Her Lismore life is destroyed. She cries when she smells the mud on her instruments. She spent three months waiting for government money to come through and survived thanks to her retired father.

"I'm going to have to sell up and leave. I can't start again. I've got nothing left," she says. "All my gear and equipment destroyed - I can't work. When I tried to get government help they wanted business records from the previous three months. They no longer exist - the computer drowned."

Jeweller Jackie Ribbons lost everything when water inundated her shop. Photo: Janie Barrett

Mark Evans' Affordable Wholefoods was one of the few CBD businesses with flood insurance. "But it's not cheap," he says. "Thirty thousand a year's a lot of money, but this time it was worth it - we lost about $350,000 in stock and equipment last March. We reopened for business on May 22."

Evans says police were threatening to arrest CBD business owners who refused to follow orders to evacuate and a lot of equipment was needlessly lost due to the wholesale panic that set in.

Days later when he returned and the water subsided, the heat caused many millions of wholefood seeds to start sprouting and the shop looked like a seed-soaked bomb site. Now five months later and despite fresh paint and new display units and equipment, the flood lingers; dehumidifiers hum 24/7 sucking the moisture out of the air.

Mark Evans, of Affordable Wholefoods in Lismore, was fully insured. Photo: Janie Barrett

"It's the bricks," Evans says. "Locally made, the walls absorbed the water as it crept up to three metres deep and the bricks all contain about a litre of water, which is still leaking out into the atmosphere."

Another survivor was 90-year-old Angela Nutt, who opened Angelica's Boutique in Molesworth Street in 1967 and has seen a Lismore flood or two.

"I just looked at the rain on the Wednesday morning - it had been pouring hard for a second day and said 'Right, that's it'. Rang the family and they came and we started taking all the stock home," she says. "I was closed Thursday, cleaned the mud out the following week and got all the stock back the following Wednesday and was opened for business while they were still cleaning up the mess outside. Thought we might get a bit of business from the gawkers."

Angelica Nutt opened Angelica's Boutique in 1967 and has seen a Lismore flood or two. Photo: Janie Barrett

Some 12 reviews into the March catastrophe have been initiated. With the exception of the Lismore City Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Lismore Citizens' Review of the March 2017 Flood, the rest are being carried out by universities, government departments or government-funded agencies.

Mayor Smith hopes the various reports will allow authorities to better cope with future floods.

"This is an opportunity to set things right for the future. Lismore can't afford to let it slip from our grasp," Smith says.