The community of Lismore has only just begun returning to their businesses and homes to assess damage after a record-breaking flood devastated Lismore.
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The Lismore levee was broken early on Monday morning and the Wilsons river level rose to above 14m, exceeding the March 1974 flood peak of 12.15m.
Just outside of Lismore, 775mm of rain fell on a small town called Dunoon in the 24 hours to 9am Monday.
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Lifeline's Michael Were said that's more than the annual average rainfall in Melbourne - approximately 649mm.
"We never stood a chance," he said.
Adam Bailey has fought hard for his shop Northern Rivers Collectibles for the last two years.
"I've been trying to fight for two years to keep it open, and now I've lost it all."
On Sunday, the rain came in and water started lapping the shop. Overnight, the river peaked. Mr Bailey's shop was lost.
Northern Rivers Collectibles is the largest antique shop in Lismore.
"One of the hardest things with our shop is that we have an antique shop, and it can't be replaced. It's all antiques, they're one-offs."
Mr Bailey only returned to his shop on Thursday morning.
"It's devastation, absolute devastation. Six businesses I know will never open again. Some of them have been here for a really, really long time, but they just can't do it, they won't be able to move forward after this," he said.
There's a lot of pain, a lot of grief, a lot of sadness in town
People should contact Lifeline for support, according to Michael Were, general manager for Lifeline in the Northern Rivers.
"Plenty of people are calling and so they should. We're here to make sure nobody faces their darkest moment alone."
Lifeline operations in the Northern Rivers have been severely impacted.
"We've lost our call centre, our warehouse, and three of our locations, our retail locations and our op shops, which are a huge part of how we continue to fund our crisis line," he said.
"The rebuild from that is really huge. We've lost our trucks, our vans, but some of our staff have lost their houses as well, which is the part that really breaks my heart."
But the calls are still being answered.
"That's the message that we want to make sure the Northern Rivers hears, don't try and do this alone."
In the weeks starting February 14 and February 21 Lifeline received the most calls of the year so far, with 22,640 calls and 23,191 calls, respectively.
A spokesman for Lifeline said the week of February 28 is on track to be another big one, with March 1 racking up one of the highest number of calls of the year with 3,517 calls.
The highest number of calls this year were made on January 1 with 3,726 calls.
The spokesman said the period post-Christmas is one of Lifeline's busiest times of the year, which can reflect increased personal stressors in the community, such as heightened financial pressures, increased family conflict, loneliness and isolation or the grief of having lost a loved one.
Lifeline's busiest days of 2021 were in August and September and set records in the company's 59 year history. Australia was also breaking records for daily COVID-19 cases at the time.
Lifeline continues to see elevated call volumes compared to those before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lifeline is reassuring communities it is normal to experience some level of psychological concern while distressing events continue both at home and overseas.
According to Mr Were, people call Lifeline for a thousand different reasons.
"Part of it is just having somebody to listen to the raw emotion of what's going on. People have been airlifted from their houses in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on their back," he said.
"There's so many things that people are calling for and should call Lifeline for. We are here to listen."
Call Lifeline 13 22 14 or text 0477 1114