It’s gone but not forgotten

Paul held the audience in his hands, with many emotionally engaged with his story at ADC2024.

In February 2022, Paul became one of the most well-known people affected by the Lismore NSW floods, after a video went viral of his dairy cows swept away in the floodwater.

His story appeared in Dairy News Australia: https://www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au/news/the-long-road-to-recovery/

At ADC2024, Paul spoke about his and his family’s experience of the flood, the impact on him emotionally and financially, and some of the learnings he has taken from that experience.

Since ADC2024, Dairy News Australia interviewed Paul further about the aftermath and how he and his family are rebuilding their livelihood.

It has taken considerable personal cost, and continues to cost.

The 2022 flood in Lismore region wasn’t the Weir family’s first experience of a natural disaster on the family farm at Tuncester, but it has been their worst.

“Our greatest asset is the river and rainfall, and it’s our biggest challenge,” Paul said.

The family farm had water across it in 1954, 1974, 1989 and 2017.

The Weir farm is geographically located where the catchments of five valleys merge.

Consequently, a lot of work has been done to ensure fodder, houses, the dairy platform, and cows are safe during floods.

Until February 2022.

“Lismore predominantly has floods in summer and autumn, and most infrastructure is flood-ready at 12.4 metres,” Paul said.

“In 1954 and 1974, the flood records were 12.38m.”

These were the highest floods on record, until February 27 and 28, 2022.

At the time of the flood, Paul and Sharon, with their son Matthew working alongside them, were in a period of expansion and herd building.

“We were milking 400 cows off 300 acres, with irrigation on 220 acres,” Paul said.

“We were looking to grow our herd into nearly double that number and we’d prepared plans for building sheds to house them.”

Dairy farmers well experienced with flood mitigation, on the afternoon and evening of Sunday, February 27, Paul, Sharon and Matthew kept a regular check on the expected flood.

They moved irrigation equipment, tractors and the herd of Holstein and Friesian-cross cows up to the house, feedpad and dairy, where they thought everything would be safe.

“They were predicting an 11.4m flood,” Paul said.

“We expected the dairy platform would be above the flood level, and we moved the milkers into the yard and I closed the gate.

“Matthew mixed up two days of feed in the silage wagon, and we thought we were prepared.”

At 2.30am on February 28, Paul rode the motorbike to see how high the river was. At that time, it was still below the bank. That reassured him.

“I went back to bed, slightly relaxed knowing the flood wasn’t expected to be above the record height,” Paul said.

“But floods rise quickly. It was Sharon who alerted me.”

The family had left lights on outside, and at 3.30am Sharon could see the water swirling outside the house. It inundated the ground floor of their home.

In the dark of night, they all realised this flood was going to exceed records, and predictions.

Paul and Matthew wanted to get equipment in the dairy lifted above the water.

“Matt and I went to the dairy. We hadn’t lifted anything at the dairy,” Paul said.

“We did what we could, then decided to return to the house.”

Paul described moving through the floodwater — he was in water up to his chest and wading slowly.

Sharon attempted to check the calf shed, but was turned back by the strength of the water.

In retrospect, Paul realises now none of them should have been in the water.

Eventually he made it back to the house, catching a verandah post with his fingertips, and hauling himself back to safety.

“I lunged and had I missed that post, I have no doubt I wouldn’t be here today,” Paul said.

“Matthew arrived back to the house by a different route.”

Shortly after the house was in darkness, after something hit the light pole near the river.

“We knew the town would be in trouble,” Paul said.

“We knew our other sons and many of our friends would be sitting on the roofs of their houses.

“There are so many unknowns. You’re in pitch darkness, everything was out of our control. We had no phone connection.

“I never realised until then that dairy farmers are control freaks. We control everything except the weather.”

Daybreak brought the reality closer when they watched cows swimming past the house.

“At the dairy, cows were fighting to get to higher ground and they broke the gate chain,” Paul said.

“For me, it was absolute failure. Those cows who relied on me to keep them safe — I had failed.

“They floated away to die.

“All I could do was hope they would get onto high ground somewhere.

“Matthew had a jet ski in the shed and he wanted to use that to help us get away from the house and find out what was going on in the town of Lismore.

“We studied the water, it swirled and then went still for a few minutes. Then it would repeat,” Paul said.

“Matt jumped off the balcony and swam towards the shed.

“That was the second hardest thing I’ve experienced — watching him swim away from me.”

Matthew took Sharon to higher ground, then rode around rescuing other people.

“He returned distressed, realising many people would drown in the town,” Paul said.

“I had fuel ready to refuel the jet ski and he went into town.”

Matthew returned to refuel at the farm during the day. He teamed up with a mate who volunteered with the SES and they searched house to house, his mate in a wetsuit searching the houses, bringing the residents out to Matthew, and Matthew transporting people to safety.

The pair rescued 43 people on February 28. Their story is one of many stories of bravery from the Northern Rivers flood zone.

Matthew brought his brothers Aidan and Josh back to the farm, from their flooded house in Lismore.

Later that day, Matthew and Aidan checked the dairy and found cows still standing on the platform.

“I was relieved,” Paul said.

The vat was still in its shed, because it was wider than the doorway.

The next morning, Aidan and Paul waded to the dairy and fired up an old Case tractor.

“The old Case tractor fired up and we were able to feed the cows,” Paul said.

“Cows that were close by came to the dairy when they heard the tractor.”

They fed 160 cows on the dairy platform.

“We had no power at the dairy. Thank goodness I’d moved a tractor to higher ground than the other machinery,” Paul said.

Half the silage that was harvested only days before and put in bunkers above the highest flood level — 550 tonnes of sorghum plus pasture silage — was destroyed.

The family and their workers spent the next few months milking cows at a neighbour’s farm.

“We’d help him milk his cows, then we’d bring our herd in for milking,” Paul said.

All fences were down.

“I phoned a fence supplier to order 1000 fence posts. I thought I’d go on a long list. I was the first caller,” Paul said.

“I was surprised. The fence posts would be delivered when the road was accessible.

“I phoned a builder and booked him for work.”

They scoured the district for cows, dead or alive.

“A friend said to leave them at his place and he’d deal with them,” Paul said.

On the Wednesday he received the dreaded phone call from a friend who had found, on his farm, 65 dead cows owned by Paul and Sharon.

He helped Paul bury them.

Paul moved 100 heifers initially to the 10 acres owned by his father, situated above the family farm. He added another 100 rescued beef cattle owned by his neighbours.

“Two hundred cattle on 10 acres. It was a mess,” Paul said.

Heifers, springing heifers and dry cows went on agistment, offered by farmers outside the Northern Rivers region.

Two years on, after losing 130 cows in total from the flood and working hard to restore operations on their farm, Paul and Sharon are looking forward.

They have been rebuilding the herd, initially by buying young cows and heifers ready to calve.

“We bought them all from well-bred herds. We were replacing the genetics of 30 years of AI,” Paul said.

“Last year, we used a lot of sexed semen and in the next five months those cows will calve. The majority of our herd this year will have heifers.”

Their plans to build sheds are progressing. It will enable them to grow their herd to the forecast 700 milkers.

“This has been a five-year plan and we’re about to send the plans to council,” Paul said.

“Five years ago we decided to go in the direction of intensifying our dairy farm, by building some sheds.

“We’ve been actively pursuing it for the last three years. We had plans drawn up by consultants and developed a budget.

“We would’ve had it all up by now if the floods hadn’t happened.”