How to prepare for and recover from a flood

Start with the type of flooding you are exposed to, because it sets your warning time. Riverine flooding, where a river or creek breaks its banks, is the one the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts through river height stations, and it can give hours or days of notice on a large catchment. Flash flooding — intense rainfall overwhelming drains, gullies and small creeks — often arrives with no gauge-based warning at all. Coastal flooding and storm surge, dam and weir releases, overland stormwater flow and a rising water table are separate mechanisms again. The SA SES makes the point directly: South Australia has a dry climate, yet parts of Adelaide and the state flood from rivers, stormwater, dam releases and coastal storm surge.

The detailed flood information for a specific property almost always sits with the local council, which commissions the flood studies. State portals index those studies rather than replacing them. FloodCheck Queensland is explicit about the limitation — it exists to show where flood studies and historic flood information exist, it states that it should not be used to determine the potential for flooding at property level, that the existence of a study over a property does not itself indicate flood risk, and that it is not to be used in a disaster or emergency. The Queensland Reconstruction Authority sends residents to their council for property-level mapping for the same reason.

In New South Wales the SES publishes Local Flood Insights, with maps and community accounts of how particular areas flood, alongside a household emergency planning tool, and it maintains dedicated material for the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, which floods deeply and isolates fast. In Victoria, VICSES publishes local flood guides for flood-prone towns and catchments, and flood extents sit behind planning overlays that a council can explain. In Tasmania, SES Tasmania points residents to local flood guides and strategic flood maps to understand risk at their own property.

In Western Australia, DFES runs the hazard information and personalised emergency planning through Emergency WA, and the state publishes floodplain mapping intended for land-use planning and general interest rather than for emergency decisions, with site-specific advice available from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation. In the Northern Territory, the Emergency Service tells residents to review local flood history and consult NT floodplain maps before the wet season, and notes that Katherine and Alice Springs are the largest populated areas regularly affected while remote communities are frequently cut off. The ACT Emergency Services Agency runs Be Flood Ready material for households, businesses, older people and people with mobility or sensory impairments.

Turn the answer into two numbers you can act on: the height floodwater reached at your address in past events, and the height of your floor above the ground. Everything below floor level is what you lose first — the garage, the subfloor, the hot water system, the switchboard if it is low, and every power point within a metre of the floor. DFES advises relocating electricity sockets above likely flood level as a permanent measure, which is the kind of work that is cheap during a renovation and impossible on the day.

Do this before you renew your insurance, not after. Insurers set flood premiums off flood mapping, terrain data and claims history according to the Insurance Council of Australia, so a property that has flooded before is priced accordingly — and a property that has never flooded may still sit inside a study area. If you rent, ask the agent whether the property has flooded and check the council's flood information yourself, because contents cover is the only insurance you control; if you are buying, ask for the flood-related planning certificate or overlay information as part of your conveyancing enquiries rather than relying on a vendor's description.

Two separate things are called a flood warning and they mean different things. The Bureau of Meteorology issues a Flood Watch when a developing weather pattern might cause flooding in the next day or two, and a Flood Warning when flooding is about to happen or is already happening — the distinction TasALERT draws as time to think and prepare against time to take action. Queensland's guidance uses the same split. A Flood Watch is your cue to move things and confirm your plan, not to wait and see.

The Bureau then classifies flooding at each river height station as minor, moderate or major. Those words describe consequences at the gauge: minor flooding reaches the riverbanks and affects low-lying land and minor roads; moderate flooding spreads across the floodplain, can cut main traffic routes, affect buildings above floor level and require evacuations and stock movement; major flooding causes extensive inundation, isolates towns and properties, closes major road and rail routes and can knock out utilities, as VICSES and the Queensland guidance both describe. The classification is set at the gauge, not at your house — a moderate flood in the river can still put water through your living room.

Layered over that is the Australian Warning System, the national three-level scheme used for flood, bushfire, cyclone, storm, extreme heat and other severe weather. Advice, in yellow, means an incident has started and there is no immediate danger — stay informed. Watch and Act, in orange, means the threat has heightened, conditions are changing and you need to start taking action now. Emergency Warning, in red, means you may be in danger and must act immediately, and that any delay puts your life at risk. NSW SES translates the three into stay informed, prepare to evacuate, and evacuate now.

The channel you watch depends on where you live, and it is worth installing the right app before the season rather than searching for it in the dark. New South Wales uses Hazards Near Me with watch zones for your address. Victoria uses VicEmergency. Queensland points residents to the BOM Weather app plus their local government disaster dashboard, which carries river heights, road closures, power outages and evacuation centre locations for that council area. Tasmania publishes through TasALERT and the SES Tasmania warnings page. Western Australia uses Emergency WA, where a personal emergency plan can be linked to a watch zone. The ACT ESA runs a warnings and alerts feed and a live incidents map, and the Northern Territory publishes through the NT Emergency Service and the Territory's emergency channels.

Alongside the apps, state and territory emergency services can push warning messages straight to mobile phones in a defined area — the national AusAlerts arrangements, which the ACT ESA still lists under the older Emergency Alert number 0444 444 444 that such messages arrive from. Do not treat that message as your first warning. It is a backstop for people who were not watching, it depends on the agency knowing the threat in time, and phone networks fail in floods.

Flash flooding is the case where the warning system cannot help you much. If your risk is a creek, a gully, a stormwater channel or a low causeway, your trigger has to be the rainfall and the sound of the water, not a message on a screen. Decide in advance what rain, at what time of night, means you move the cars and go — and accept that you may act on three false alarms for every real one.

Write the plan while the weather is fine. Every SES publishes a template, and the questions are the same everywhere: where you will go, by which route and which alternative route, who is responsible for whom, what happens to pets and livestock, who tells the neighbours, and what the trigger is. DFES makes the point that a plan linked to a watch zone in the Emergency WA app removes indecision when seconds matter; the NT Emergency Service asks households to prepare for at least 72 hours and to move furniture and possessions to high ground before the wet season.

Build the kit and keep it where you can carry it out in one trip. NSW SES lists identification, a Medicare card and proof of address, medications and prescriptions including eScripts with enough supply, medical equipment and backup power for it, non-perishable food, water and a can opener, baby supplies and a charged phone, and supplies for three to seven days if you go to an evacuation centre. DFES advises adding at least five days of food, drinking water and medicines for the household, including pets, once alerts are issued. Keep documents in a sealed waterproof container.

Then move things up, in the order that matters. Stack possessions, records, stock and equipment on benches and tables with electrical items on top. Relocate waste containers, chemicals and poisons well above floor level — the NSW SES advice exists because a flooded shed empties its chemicals into the water everyone then wades through. Move portable appliances high, lift rugs, put irreplaceable items in the roof space or take them with you, and move vehicles, trailers and machinery to high ground while the roads are still open.

Livestock and pets need a decision, not an intention. Move animals, including agisted animals, to high ground early, and prepare pets for evacuation with carriers, food and a lead. Animals left behind are one of the most common reasons people re-enter floodwater, and evacuation centres cannot always take them.

Sandbags have a published method, and it is not the one most people improvise. NSW SES advice is to fill hessian bags until two-thirds full with sand rather than dirt — dirt turns to mud — leave the top of the bag empty and untied, lay them like brickwork with the rows staggered so the joins do not line up, flatten the unfilled part of each bag before laying the next on top of it, and build the wall two rows wide if it is going to be more than five sandbags high. Plastic sheeting may be used underneath to reduce seepage. Lay them across doorways and garage doors to the expected flood height — and do not seal yourself in. Councils and SES units announce sandbagging station locations once a warning is issued; hessian bags are otherwise sold at hardware stores.

The sandbags that matter most go inside. Placing bags over shower, laundry and sink drains and in toilet bowls is what stops sewage backflow into the house when the system surcharges, and DFES suggests filling pillowcases with sand for this if you have nothing else. Wear sturdy gloves handling wet bags, and expect to throw them out afterwards — bags contaminated by floodwater must be discarded through your council's disposal process, not reused in the garden.

Before you leave, switch the power off at the switchboard and turn off the gas, as VICSES and the NT Emergency Service both advise, and unplug what you cannot move. Take photographs of every room and the exterior on your way out, with the furniture where it is. Those images are the baseline your insurer compares the damage against, and they take four minutes.

Finally, read the insurance certificate before the season rather than after the water. SA SES lists checking that the policy is current and covers flood as one of five things to do now, and it is the only one of the five that cannot be done on the day.

Know which number to call before you need it. Triple Zero is for life-threatening emergencies — anyone trapped, in the water, injured or cut off with a medical need. The State Emergency Service on 132 500 is for flood and storm assistance: property flooded or about to flood, a tree down across access, a damaged or leaking roof, sandbag support. That number is the same in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Western Australia also runs a recorded emergency information line on 13 33 37, and the NT publishes 131 444 for non-emergency police matters.

When you call 132 500, write down the reference number you are given. If your situation resolves — the tree is moved, the water recedes, a neighbour helped — call back with that reference and cancel the job. Uncancelled jobs sit in a queue that volunteers are working through in the order received, and an SES crew driving to a house that no longer needs help is a crew not driving to one that does.

The single most important rule is the one people break: never drive, ride or walk into floodwater. VICSES states that it can take just 15 centimetres of flowing water to float a car — the height of an average pen — and TasALERT warns that it is easy to be swept away and drown in as little as 20 centimetres of fast-moving water. Research published in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management through AIDR attributes approximately 45 per cent of all Australian flood fatalities since 2001 to people entering floodwater in motor vehicles, and cites the Australian Water Safety Council for the finding that over half of all unintentional flood-related drowning deaths between 2004–05 and 2014–15 resulted from driving through floodwaters.

The reasons are mechanical and they compound. You cannot see whether the road is still under the water — causeways and shoulders wash out from below. The water hides debris, snags and open drains. Once the car lifts, the electrics fail, so power windows and central locking stop working, doors will not open against the pressure, and the engine hydro-locks. If a passenger tells you it looks fine, that is the pattern the research describes rather than a second opinion. Turn around, obey road closure signs, and take the long way.

Do not let children play in floodwater, and do not swim or wade in it. Floodwater carries sewage, agricultural and industrial chemicals, fuel and sharp debris, and a cut in floodwater is a serious infection risk. Assume every fallen power line is live and stay at least eight metres away from it, as NSW SES advises, and treat water near a fallen line as energised.

If an evacuation order is issued, go, and go early — before the roads close. NSW SES is explicit that leaving early to stay with family, friends or at an evacuation centre is preferred to sheltering in place, because staying puts rescue crews at risk to get you out later. Take the kit, your medications, your identification and your pets. Tell someone where you are going. If you cannot get out, move to the highest safe floor with your phone, a torch and water — and do not go into a roof cavity, which NSW SES warns against, because a roof cavity with no exit is a trap when the water keeps rising.

Evacuation centres provide a safe place for people displaced from their homes, with basic support; bring your emergency kit and supplies for three to seven days, and expect to register your presence so agencies and relatives can locate you. Whether pets are accepted varies by centre, so prepare an animal bag and a fallback arrangement.

If you are isolated rather than inundated — surrounded by water but dry — the problems are supplies, medication and power rather than rescue. Ration what you have, keep phones charged while power lasts, check on neighbours who are older or live alone, as the NT Emergency Service advises, and tell the SES if someone in the house has a medical need that will become urgent.

Wait until the authorities say the area is safe. NSW SES and TasALERT both say it plainly, and the reason is not bureaucratic: roads are undermined, bridges are unassessed, sewerage is surcharging and the second rainfall peak in a catchment often arrives after the first has passed. Returning early also puts you in the way of the crews clearing the area.

Electricity comes first. Turn the power off at the main switch before you enter, as SA SES advises, and use a torch rather than a candle. Anything that has been under water — power points, wiring, the switchboard, appliances, solar inverters, batteries — must be inspected by a licensed electrician before it is used or re-energised. NSW guidance for flood-damaged properties requires a licensed electrician to check the power supply, all electrical appliances to be safety tagged, and exposed wiring to be certified safe before repairs proceed. Do not test an appliance to see whether it still works.

Gas is next. Gas appliances, lines and bottles that have been exposed to floodwater need a licensed gasfitter before use. If gas has accumulated inside, avoid open flames entirely and use battery-operated lights, as Victorian health guidance advises. Then the structure: flooding undermines footings and saturates framing, and Victorian advice is that structural integrity needs to be declared safe by a qualified building surveyor. Check windows, walls and roof for movement before anyone works inside.

Water and waste systems come next and are the ones people skip. Follow your water authority's advice, and until the supply is declared safe, drink only bottled or boiled water — brought to a rolling boil and cooled, remembering that boiling does not remove chemical contamination. An above-ground rainwater tank that has not been inundated or damaged is generally safe to keep using; one that has been swamped is not. A licensed plumber should test the water supply and sewerage, and a septic system or on-site treatment plant that has been submerged needs checking before it is used again.

Wear the gear every time you go in. Sturdy waterproof boots, rubber or leather gloves, long clothing, eye protection and a P2 mask for dust once things dry out. Cover any open wound before you start and clean cuts immediately. Use repellent containing DEET, because standing water after a flood breeds mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease follows floods in northern and inland Australia. Watch for snakes and displaced wildlife in debris piles, and assume anything sharp in the silt is contaminated.

Throw out food that has been in contact with floodwater, and any damaged or bulging cans. Victorian guidance is to discard perishable foods — including meat, poultry, fish, eggs or leftovers — that have been left above 5°C for more than four hours. Sealed, undamaged cans can be kept if they are cleaned and disinfected. The same guidance gives a disinfecting solution for items contaminated by sewage: soak them in 1.5 cups of household bleach in 10 litres of cold water for two minutes. Apply the same caution to bench tops, utensils and anything a child will touch.

Only when power, gas, structure, water and waste have all been cleared should you start moving things. That is five checks, and in a widespread event each one may take days because every licensed trade in the region is booked. Plan for that, and do not let a builder or a well-meaning relative talk you into skipping a step because the house looks fine.

Photograph and film before you move anything. Wide shots of each room, close-ups of damage, the mud line on the outside walls, the water line on internal walls, serial numbers on appliances and the contents of cupboards and wardrobes. Note the height the water reached, because the flood level is the fact that decides most claim arguments — what was above it, what was below it, and whether the damage is consistent with the peril claimed. Our guide to natural disaster recovery covers the inventory and claim evidence in detail; the point here is that the photographs must exist before the clean-up starts.

Then strip out. Carpets, underlay, mattresses and soft furnishings that have been in floodwater are almost always a loss. NSW Health advises removing carpets, mattresses and other wet furniture and checking behind fridges and cupboards and inside wall and floor cavities, because mould and mildew develop where you cannot see them. In practice that means removing skirtings and cutting back wall linings to above the water line, so the cavity and frame can dry — a house that has had linings left in place looks finished and rots quietly.

Dry it properly and do not rush the reinstatement. Once debris is out, fans and cross-ventilation dry the framing and linings, and NSW guidance describes this as the step that prevents mould. Drying a saturated timber frame and slab takes weeks, not days, and re-lining walls over damp framing guarantees a mould problem later. If a builder wants to sheet the walls a fortnight after a flood, ask for a moisture reading first.

Treat mould as the health hazard it is. NSW Health describes mould spores causing a runny or blocked nose, eye and skin irritation and wheezing, with asthma attacks in people who have asthma and worse outcomes for people with allergies, chronic lung disease or a weakened immune system. For routine cleaning it recommends a diluted vinegar solution of four parts vinegar to one part water, and for mould that will not come off, a diluted bleach solution of 250 millilitres of bleach in four litres of water, used in a well-ventilated area with PVC or nitrile gloves, safety glasses and safety shoes. Anything that cannot be cleaned and dried completely should be discarded.

Assume asbestos in anything built before 1990 and treat it accordingly. SafeWork NSW describes asbestos in flat and corrugated fibro sheeting, vinyl floor coverings and their backing, roofing, eaves, pipes and electrical conduit. Flood-damaged asbestos material is most dangerous as it dries, because that is when fibres are released. Keep it damp, clean it with soapy water and a cloth, sponge, soft brush or a domestic hose, and never use a high-pressure cleaner, a power tool or a dry brush on it.

The removal rules are set by your state work health and safety regulator and they differ, so check the one for your jurisdiction before you pick anything up. In New South Wales, a householder may remove up to ten square metres of non-friable asbestos themselves — though a licensed removalist is recommended — while ten square metres or more, and all friable asbestos, requires a licensed removalist. Wear a P2 mask as a minimum, not a paper dust mask, with heavy-duty gloves, overalls and sturdy footwear. Double-wrap waste in 0.2 millimetre plastic, label it as asbestos waste, and take it only to a facility licensed to accept it — never to the kerbside pile or into a hole in the yard.

Sort the rest of the waste into the streams your council asks for, and ask before you pile it on the verge: after a declared event most councils run a specific flood waste collection, with separate arrangements for asbestos, hazardous chemicals, whitegoods and green waste. Contaminated sandbags go through that process too.

Choose trades carefully, because disaster zones attract operators who are not licensed and door-knockers who are not local. NSW guidance is to verify a licence through the state's licence checker, get a written contract, obtain multiple quotes and be wary of anyone who found you. Residential building work over $5,000 including GST requires a licence in NSW, and electrical, plumbing, gasfitting and air conditioning work always does. On approvals, minor repairs such as replacing fixtures, repainting or repairing non-structural walls generally do not need council consent, while rebuilding a property that had an occupation certificate does — confirm with your council before demolition rather than after.

Since June 2012, a single standard definition of flood has applied across home and contents policies, domestic strata-title policies and small business policies. As the Insurance Council of Australia sets it out, flood means the covering of normally dry land by water that has escaped or been released from the normal confines of any lake, or any river, creek or other natural watercourse, whether or not altered or modified, or of any reservoir, canal or dam. Every policy the definition applies to uses those words, whatever the marketing says. That reform followed the 2010–11 floods, when people discovered that the word in their policy did not mean what they assumed.

What the standard definition does not settle is which peril actually caused your damage. Rain falling on the property and getting in through a roof or a broken window is storm or rainwater damage. Water backing up a stormwater system or running overland from higher ground is stormwater or runoff. Water that came out of a creek is flood. In a single event a house can be damaged by all three within an hour, and the insurer's assessment of which one did what determines whether the policy responds.

Check how your policy handles flood before you need it. The Insurance Council describes four approaches in the domestic market: flood cover as a standard inclusion, a standard inclusion with an opt-out at the customer's request, not standard but available to opt in, and not a standard inclusion at all. Commercial products require opting in. If you do not have flood cover, the insurer will still assess whether another part of the policy responds — storm, or rainwater that fell naturally from the sky — so a flood exclusion is not automatically the end of the claim. Read the product disclosure statement and the certificate of insurance together, because the certificate is where opt-outs show up.

Premiums in flood-exposed areas are set from data, not from judgement. The Insurance Council describes insurers using the National Flood Information Database, which overlays government flood mapping across 13.7 million property addresses, alongside local government flood maps, historical flood data, terrain information and claims history, to assess how often a property is expected to flood, how severe that flooding may be and how deep it can get. That is worth knowing for two reasons: a mitigation change that lifts your floor level or removes a habitable basement can be worth raising with the insurer, and a premium that jumps sharply is usually a re-rating of the address rather than an error.

When you lodge, do it early and in writing, describe what happened in sequence, and be precise about where the water came from and how high it got. Ask for the assessor's report and the scope of works, and ask for the specific policy clause relied on if any part of the claim is declined. If the insurer's position rests on a hydrologist's opinion, ask for it — it is the document the whole decision turns on, and it is frequently based on catchment modelling rather than a visit to your street.

If you disagree, the path is an internal complaint to the insurer first, then the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which resolves insurance disputes free of charge and can make determinations that bind the insurer if you accept them. After a major event the Insurance Council may declare an insurance catastrophe, which triggers coordinated industry arrangements and prioritised handling for affected areas. Our guide to challenging a denied insurance claim sets out the internal dispute resolution letter, the evidence that changes outcomes and the AFCA process in full.

If you rent, serious flood damage is urgent repairs, and it is treated that way in every state and territory's tenancy law. In New South Wales, serious storm, fire or flood damage is expressly urgent, so the landlord must act quickly. Where the premises are wholly or partly uninhabitable, rent should be waived or reduced by agreement while you cannot use the property, and any agreement should be in writing. Either the tenant or the landlord may end the tenancy by written notice where the premises are destroyed or become uninhabitable — that does not happen automatically — and NCAT decides the question if the parties disagree. NSW Fair Trading takes tenancy enquiries on 13 32 20.

Two points catch renters out everywhere. First, the landlord is not responsible for damage to your furniture or belongings from a natural disaster, so contents insurance is the only cover for your own possessions. Second, mould that follows a flood is a repair issue, and NSW Health directs tenants with persistent mould to raise it with the landlord and then with Fair Trading. The equivalent rules and tribunals exist in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory, with different notice periods and reimbursement caps — check the tenancy regulator in your state, and see our guide to urgent repairs for the jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction detail.

On money, there are three systems and they do not talk to each other: Commonwealth disaster payments claimed through myGov when they are activated for your local government area, state hardship and recovery grants claimed from your state government, and your insurance claim. Queensland, for example, runs a Community Recovery Hotline on 1800 173 349 for people needing hardship assistance and emergency housing after a declared event. Our guide to getting help after a natural disaster covers eligibility, the claim process and the state programs in full, and it is the page to work through once the immediate safety steps are done.

Plan for a long recovery. Trades are scarce in a flood-affected region because everyone needs the same ones at the same time, drying and rebuilding run to months, and the health effects — including the mould exposure and the sheer exhaustion of living in a half-repaired house — arrive later than people expect. Where the house cannot be lived in, read the temporary accommodation provision in your own policy on day one rather than month six: check whether it is capped in dollars, in months, or both, and what triggers it, because that limit is set by your policy wording and not by the length of the repair.

When the repairs are done, close the loop. Update the sum insured against what the rebuild actually cost, take new photographs of the house and contents, put the flood level in writing somewhere you will find it again, and make the mitigation changes the flood taught you — power points lifted, a second exit route planned, the kit rebuilt and the plan rewritten with what you now know.