The dairy farmer from Croki spoke to a researcher from Risk Frontiers a few weeks after floodwaters had finally drained from his pastures. Sitting at a table in a temporary community meeting room, he looked exhausted — the kind of fatigue that comes from weeks of disrupted sleep and constant uncertainty. When asked what the flood had been like, he paused before answering. “Mum, dad and nan have never seen anything like this,” he said. “And they’ve seen plenty.”
Croki is a small rural community north of Taree in New South Wales, located deep within the Manning River catchment. It is the kind of place that rarely appears on most maps — a landscape of unsealed roads, open pastures and farms that support dairy, beef and mixed agriculture. When the Mid North Coast floods of May 2025 swept through the region, Croki was among the hardest-hit areas.
Residents later described water levels that were not just higher than anything they had previously experienced, but dramatically higher. Some said the floodwaters rose to nearly three times the height of the worst floods anyone in the community could remember. The scale of the disaster stunned even those who had spent their lives living alongside the river.
The impact on farms was severe. Livestock drowned in rising water, feed storage areas were destroyed and expensive equipment — including tractors, irrigation systems and farm vehicles — was damaged beyond repair or carried away by the current. When the floodwaters eventually retreated, they left behind paddocks buried under thick layers of silt and debris.
Even beginning the recovery process proved difficult. The roads connecting properties to nearby towns remained too damaged or muddy for heavy machinery to travel for weeks. Without access for repair crews or assessment teams, farmers could not begin properly evaluating their losses. And until those losses were documented, financial assistance could not be processed.
This sequence — disaster followed by isolation, delayed assessment and delayed support — is a familiar pattern in rural flood recovery across Australia. It is not caused by neglect or lack of concern but by the practical realities of responding to disasters across large rural regions where road networks serve as the main lifeline for communities.
In Croki, the Manning River reached levels that even the area’s oldest residents said they had never witnessed before. Post-disaster research indicated that the flooding exceeded what most planning frameworks would have considered reasonable risk levels. Homes and farms had been built over generations based on the worst floods people could remember. The May 2025 disaster far surpassed those historical benchmarks.
Across the broader Mid North Coast region, agricultural damage continued to be assessed weeks after the flood peak. Thousands of hectares of pasture and farmland were inundated during the event. The dairy industry was particularly vulnerable because moving cattle quickly during floods is extremely difficult. Many farms lost animals, feed supplies and vital infrastructure.
Government agencies responded with emergency assistance programs. The New South Wales government organised fodder deliveries, veterinary support and recovery guidance for farmers. The Australian Defence Force helped with logistics and supply transport. Disaster assistance programs also offered hardship loans to affected producers.
Despite these measures, many farmers said the support could not fully compensate for the scale of the damage. Several properties were already recovering from earlier floods and drought conditions, meaning the financial and emotional toll of repeated disasters was compounding over time.
This slower, long-term recovery process rarely receives the same attention as the dramatic images that dominate the early stages of disasters. Helicopter rescues, record-breaking river gauges and aerial footage of flooded towns quickly capture public attention. But the long and difficult work of rebuilding farms — repairing land, replacing animals and restoring infrastructure — can take years.
For farming families in the Manning Valley, the 2025 disaster did not occur in isolation. Many had already rebuilt after the 2021 floods and experienced further losses in 2022. Between those disasters were drought years and devastating fire seasons. By the time the May 2025 floods arrived, some communities were already stretched to their limits.
Studies on disaster resilience consistently show that the greatest vulnerability often lies not in a household’s initial level of wealth or assets but in how much recovery time they have between disasters. Families still rebuilding from one event have far less capacity to withstand the next.
In this case, the floods also followed Cyclone Alfred earlier in the same year, creating another layer of disruption across parts of eastern Australia. The pattern of damage followed by partial recovery, then another damaging event, was becoming an increasingly familiar reality for coastal and river communities.
In the regional centre of Taree, which became the focal point of the disaster, recovery efforts quickly revealed how many people needed assistance. The Taree Recovery Centre recorded more than 1,073 visits in just six days. Most people were seeking financial support, emergency accommodation or food assistance.
Insurance posed another major challenge. In many parts of the Mid North Coast, flood insurance premiums had risen dramatically due to repeated disasters. Researchers found that some households in places like Glenthorne had been quoted premiums of up to $60,000 per year — a cost most families simply could not afford.
As a result, many homeowners allowed their policies to lapse or reduced their coverage. When the record-breaking flood arrived, those households had little or no financial protection against the damage.
Community support networks played a crucial role during the crisis. Neighbours helped each other evacuate, local volunteers used boats to rescue stranded residents and informal communication networks formed quickly through local social media groups.
Emergency officials later acknowledged that these grassroots efforts were essential. However, they also noted that informal networks cannot fully replace formal emergency infrastructure or guaranteed support systems.
Some of the most vulnerable residents were those who lacked strong social connections or reliable internet access. Elderly people living alone, remote households without nearby neighbours and families unable to access online communication were often the most isolated during the disaster.
For the researcher who interviewed the Croki dairy farmer, the most striking aspect of the fieldwork was not just the physical destruction but the emotional toll. The exhaustion described by residents was not simply the fatigue of a few sleepless nights but the deeper weariness of repeated crises.
Many people had been told again and again that each disaster they faced was exceptional or unprecedented. Increasingly, however, residents were beginning to wonder whether such events might become more common in the future.
At the end of the conversation, the farmer from Croki reflected quietly on what lay ahead. “We’ll rebuild,” he said.
He spoke without dramatic emotion or complaint — simply stating what farming families across Australia have done for generations. They rebuild because it is what they know how to do.
The question that remains is whether the broader systems surrounding them — including insurance markets, infrastructure planning, disaster funding and climate policy — will provide enough stability for that rebuilding to continue.
His mother, father and grandmother had never seen a flood like this one. The record river levels recorded at Taree suggest the next generation may not have that same reference point.
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