Latest news with #SamHalloran
SBS Australia
4 days ago
- Business
- SBS Australia
'Going to get worse': Why Sam's dream home came with a $30,000 insurance dilemma
Sam Halloran (left) with his father Leigh, outside their flood damaged home in Glenthorne, NSW. Source: SBS News Sam Halloran wanted to raise his son in the house his father Leigh raised him in. But their dream turned to a nightmare as the biggest flood in living memory tore through their community in May. The Manning River rose so quickly that Sam, his wife and two-year-old son became trapped on the second level of their riverside home just outside the Taree CBD, in Glenthorne, NSW. His wife and son were airlifted to safety by helicopter, in a dramatic rescue Sam filmed from their balcony. "It was a big ordeal," Sam told SBS News. "My wife and son were airlifted by PolAir first. Then they came back and got my roommate who's been living downstairs with us. "They were going to take me as well, but they couldn't take our two dogs.' On Facebook Sam wrote of the rescue: "Probably the most traumatic thing I've ever endured having to restrain my beautiful two year old son in this bag screaming while his mum was being lifted up and pass him onto the roof to be lifted into the air with her." Sam said he decided to stay and wait for a State Emergency Service boat. "They eventually did come. They came and got me with the two dogs," he said. "There was a moment there where we thought we might not get the dogs out, so when that did happen, it was quite a relief." Sam said he launched straight into the cleanup and hasn't fully processed being rescued and coming back to a house left ruined by floodwater, mud and debris. Sam's two-year-old son has been having nightmares about the helicopter rescue, he said. "I've got to be here [for the cleanup], but it's getting harder to get out of bed." Protecting Sam's dream home and his young family's future was put at a very high price. "We had one insurance company that would have insured us, but it was over $30,000 a year, which we couldn't afford,' Sam said. The quote provided to Sam in August last year, seen by SBS News, shows the annual premium for standard building and contents insurance on their home was priced at $29,817.91. Insurance premiums in the area soared out of reach for most after floods in 2021. This year in the Manning Valley, the flood reached more than a metre higher than four years ago, so the insurance problem is only expected to worsen. "There's going to be people that were insured that won't be insured moving forward," Sam said. Leigh, Sam's father, says he purchased insurance on the same home in 2002. "I think I paid about $700 to insure the house. Yes, it was 20 years ago, but it's not comparable, is it?" Leigh said. "Insurance companies, sure, they're there to make a profit. I understand that. They wouldn't exist without profit. "But at the end of the day, they're putting premiums up far beyond the average household's budget." The Hallorans said they'd only heard of one person in the area who was insured, but their premium was still over $10,000 a year. On their street, they didn't know of anyone able to afford the exorbitant premiums. "No one in this entire street has flood insurance because they are all quoted around the $30,000 mark," Leigh said. In April, financial comparison site Canstar published its analysis of average annual premiums for home and contents insurance across Australia. In NSW, the average combined policy costs $2,210, based on homes valued between $300,000 and $1.5 million with $50,000 in contents cover. The Insurance Council of Australia has declared the recent NSW floods an 'insurance catastrophe', with nearly 8,000 claims processed as of Saturday. Up to 10,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed, with more than 800 already declared uninhabitable. During a visit to Taree on Tuesday, SBS News asked Insurance Council of Australia CEO Andrew Hall whether he would support reforms to assist people who can't afford to insure their properties or businesses in flood zones. "When we see that happen and particularly in events like we're going through here at the moment, it underscores the point that we have been making now for a number of years to government," Hall said. "Insurance prices [relate to] the risk, and we know that in Australia there are around 220,000 homes that are built in high-risk flood zones like where we are right now. "We need to come up with a flood defence fund that can better flood-proof those properties, that can lift the home out of harm's way and, worst-case scenario, we may have to look at buybacks." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, also speaking in Taree on Tuesday, acknowledged "there are longer-term issues that need to be looked at" to address the insurance problem. "We recognise that people are doing it really tough. I've said that more support is going to be needed," Albanese said. "We expect insurance companies to do right by their customers and swiftly process claims. They've set up an office here so that they can be dealt with swiftly. "But our focus now is on the cleanup and recovery from this event. That's our focus, the immediate needs." Federal Minister for Emergency Management Kristy McBain also told ABC's RN Breakfast program on Wednesday that insurance in flood-prone areas was a "significant concern". "We know for a number of the businesses and the farms that we spoke to, they either haven't been offered insurance or insurance was too expensive for them to take up," McBain said. She said she and Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino would be having direct discussions with insurance companies and the Insurance Council. Sam Halloran told SBS News that the immediate relief provided by the federal government wasn't proportionate to the scale of the cleanup and recovery facing the community. "Seventy people from the [Australian Defence Force] … we've had more volunteers than that just in our street alone in the last week, so I don't know what 70 ADF members are supposed to do," he said. "I've got people here working that have run their own businesses, they're sole operators, and they've donated their time to help me. "We need machinery. At my place alone, there is something like 400 trucks worth of silt to get rid of." A few doors down from the Hallorans, Daryl Hammond owns a farm. His main business is producing feed. The seasonal nature of his business, he says, means insurance is nearly impossible for him to get. "I can't insure anything because last month I had over 1,000 bales of silage. Come the end of July, August, I might have 50. How can I insure something like that?" Hammond told SBS News last week. "I'd be onto the broker every second day. It would cost me $20,000 [to] $30,000 a year just to have everything insured if I could insure it. And, I mean, mostly [the insurance companies] just shake their head." For Hammond, the Hallorans and their neighbours, they want to see change. The community wants to keep living where they have deep roots and connections, but also wants a way to protect their future. "Houses like this are not a river frontage, there is a farm between us and the river. At the end of the day, yes, it's in a flood zone, but [the insurance] is becoming unfathomable," Leigh Halloran said. "Sam spent his teenage years here. It's a great community. Everyone just gets on perfectly, and it was a great place for him to grow up, and he wants to raise his son in this community, you know? Which is really, really nice." Sam Halloran says it's impossible to predict what Mother Nature is going to do, but all levels of government need to work harder to prevent the impact of disasters on regional communities. "The 100-year flood development control in our local council area is, at the moment, 5.2 metres," he said. "Anyone building a new house had to have a floor level of 5.7 metres. This flood was nearly 6.5 metres. So, someone could have built a brand-new house close to the river, had full insurance and still had this water through the house. 'It's something that we can't control. You can't not live near the river." Sam says with the level of damage seen in the homes and businesses of Taree, insuring "is going to get worse, not better".
Barnama
23-05-2025
- Climate
- Barnama
4 Dead, 1 Missing in Eastern Australia Floods
NSW Police use a helicopter to rescue a resident from their rooftop from floodwaters in Taree, New South Wales, Australia, May 21, 2025, in this screen grab obtained from a video. AAP/Sam Halloran/via REUTERS SYDNEY, May 23 (Bernama-Xinhua) -- Four people have died and one is missing in floodwaters in the eastern Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), Xinhua reported. NSW Police said in a statement that the body of a man was found in a car in floodwaters near the small town of Nana Glen, about 450 km northeast of Sydney, on Friday morning. The vehicle was spotted about 4.30 am by a passing motorist, who notified police. Officers and State Emergency Service (SES) members went to the scene and found the body of a man, believed to be in his 70s, inside the vehicle. bootstrap slideshow NSW Police said he appeared to be the sole occupant of the vehicle. It marks the fourth death in the widespread flooding crisis that has hit several NSW regions north of Sydney. NSW Police said on Thursday night that the body of a woman in her 60s was recovered from a vehicle in floodwaters near the town of Brooklana, about 430 km northeast of Sydney, on Thursday afternoon. The woman had been missing since Wednesday night when she called authorities for help after her vehicle became stuck. An initial search on Wednesday night was unable to locate the woman or her vehicle. Her body was found in the vehicle when the search resumed on Thursday, a police statement said. The body of a 63-year-old man was found at a flooded property in the hardest-hit Mid North Coast region on Wednesday afternoon, and a 34-year-old man who went missing while driving through floodwaters on Wednesday night was found dead on Thursday morning.
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Footage shows helicopter rescue airlifting residents stranded in NSW floods
Residents of the NSW mid-north coast have described their anxious wait to be rescued as unprecedented flooding struck the Manning River, inundating homes and businesses across the region. Sam Halloran posted this video on Facebook of a NSW police helicopter crew coming to their aid, and wrote: "We are now all out and safe including our two doggos"
News.com.au
21-05-2025
- Climate
- News.com.au
Cars, homes submerged by floodwaters on Mid-North Coast
A Glenthorne man has shared terrifying footage of floodwaters lapping at the second floor of his home while he awaits rescue with his wife and two-year-old son. Sam Halloran posted a video to Facebook on Wednesday morning shot from his balcony, showing cars and neighbouring homes submerged by floodwaters in the NSW Mid-North Coast town of Glenthorne, just south of Taree, where the Manning River is exceeding levels never seen before. 'Is there anyone with a boat that can launch at south taree somewhere and come and get my wife and little boy in glenthorne before our top floor goes under? Been waiting on ses for 6.6 hours,' he wrote in a Facebook post early on Wednesday morning. Mr Halloran was waiting to be rescued with his wife Jordan, who earlier spoke to the ABC about their desperate situation. 'I think it's about probably 600(mm) off coming into the top level of our house,' she said. 'But the main concern is our two-year-old son, who is here with us and two dogs. 'Even more of a priority is our neighbour's house, which is about to be inundated with water. 'We're awaiting a rescue. We've been waiting since about 1am. 'They said the only way to get us out at the moment is with a chopper and there aren't any.' But about 9.30am, Mr Halloran posted an image to Facebook of a helicopter with the words 'Thanks everyone!' Speaking with the ABC, Ms Halloran said she 'didn't expect this amount of water'. 'In the 2021 floods, there may have been maybe a foot of water through the bottom storey of this house,' she said. 'Don't assume that things will be OK and as they were before. 'The weather's very unpredictable.' Earlier on Wednesday morning, SES shared that the Manning River had surpassed the 1929 record of 6m and was still rising. 'Residents in Taree, Wingham and Glenthorne may be isolated by floodwaters for several hours,' the alert said. 'In some locations people have been urged to move to higher ground, as rising floodwater and treacherous conditions are making rescues difficult to undertake.' Over the past 24 hours, NSW SES have responded to 892 incidents, including 130 flood rescues. The majority of these rescues have occurred in the Taree, Wingham and Glenthorne areas. NSW SES Assistant Commissioner Colin Malone said emergency service partners and the SES were 'deploying every available asset' to rescue people as quickly as possible. 'Through the night, teams have undertaken a significant number of rescues at Taree, Port Macquarie and Ghini Ghini,' he said. 'This is a dynamic situation where a number of evacuation warnings were issued through Tuesday and overnight, with residents door knocked as well. 'Unfortunately, we've also had a large number of calls for help in areas that were subject to evacuation warnings and we are still assessing how best to access those locations. 'We've advised those people needing assistance to move to higher ground, as we're unable to currently access by boat, road or air due to the current weather conditions.' Severe weather is expected to continue throughout Wednesday.
