Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie the eye of the storm struck at the end of March this year. The system made landfall around midday on Tuesday, March 28, first crossing the coast at Airlie Beach. Debbie was a category four system at her most powerful and the highest wind gusts came in at 263 kilometres per hour at Hamilton Island.

Debbie threw her weight around, flattening crops and blowing down walls—even stripping the feathers from birds unable to shelter from her force. After the eye of the storm, the floods came, turning streets, shops and homes into muddy messes strewn with stinking debris.

Brumby’s at Airlie Beach was one of the coast’s first bakeries to stare down Debbie. The cyclone tore through the strip of shops that Brumby’s calls home, blasting open the bakery’s front doors and peeling off a section of roof.

When franchisee Patricia Betar returned to the store, she found the front window smashed, and the signage and front canopy completely blown away. During the next 12 days, the store was without power, and Patricia and her husband had a massive cleanup to tackle. Fortunately, the store was saved from the worst of the flooding by two steps.

“Other shops were ankle-deep in water but most of our damage came in through the roof,” Patricia said. “After the cyclone, the rain came and we had to clean it all up again.

“Some of our electrical equipment didn’t work anymore, and we were all stocked up for Easter, so we had a lot more stock than usual in the store.”

While the couple worked to get Brumby’s back up and running, Cyclone Debbie: Eye of the storm tamed to a tropical low inland. From there it tracked south-east, taking heavy rain and flash flooding with it.

Three days after Debbie crossed the coast at Airlie Beach, two bakers were working the early shift at Yatala Pies, the famous stop halfway between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. They had received a delivery of meat and flour at 5am but at 6am, no one showed up for work. They went to investigate and outside, found rapidly rising water. The bakers got straight to work barricading the building with bags of flour and boxes, but the water just kept on coming.

Yatala Pies general manager Susan Porter says community support got their doors open again 10 days later.

“Our aim was to minimise business interruption, get clean and get the doors back open so everyone can earn an income,” Susan explained.

“Our two rack ovens were ruined. Luckily there was one available in Australia but we’re still waiting for the other one to be delivered from Italy.”

Flour bags were no defence against the rising water that almost engulfed the Yatala Pies store in its entirety

The same Friday Yatala flooded, an hour-and-a-half’s drive down the coast in the town of Lismore, the Wilson River broke its banks. Lismore’s CBD was evacuated and the owner of Henry’s Bakery, Michael Lawson, sat at home watching via CCTV feed as his bakery flooded. It was devastating viewing.

“The water didn’t come in until something like 4pm as there was a lag between when the levee was breached and when the area around filled up,” Michael said.

The water would reach shoulder height in the bakery, damaging display ovens, refrigerators and the cool room, and leaving the front and back doors clogged with debris.

“We would have lifted things higher if we didn’t underestimate the height of the water,” Michael said.

The challenges to reopening the bakery were two-fold: first, returning it to a state appropriate for producing food and, second, finding a sound electrician.

“There are electricians and there are electricians,” Michael says, explaining some electricians were quick to write off equipment that others were willing to repair.

Like the team at Yatala Pies, Henry’s Bakery benefitted from a team of volunteers who showed up to help clean the store. Those efforts, combined with a good electrician, got the bakery back on its feet just seven days later.

Michael said he’s had ongoing glitch issues with equipment and is still learning to use the new phone system they’ve just installed.

The team at Yatala pies is still working around the clock baking pies in the one working oven while they wait for the other to arrive from Italy. They’re also waiting for the water to dry out under the bitumen car park and the building’s concrete slab before the damage can be fully assessed—a lengthy process that could take up to 12 months.

The one thing all three bakery owners will attest to is the importance of being fully insured. While the Brumby’s and Yatala Pies bakeries were covered, Michael says his bakery was located in a flood zone and therefore wasn’t able to be insured against flooding.

“We should be entitled to a $15,000 grant,” he said.

“We’ve probably already spent three times that amount but luckily we had the cash flow so we weren’t dependent on the grant.”

As far as being prepared for the next deluge, Michael is considering building a first floor above Henry’s Bakery, and urged other business owners to be self-reliant.

“Do what you can with your premises to minimise impact,” he said, emphasising the importance of having equipment such as a trailer availble to move essential equipment out of harm’s way.

“You can’t expect to get a forklift or truck during a disaster,” he said.

“And don’t forget to find a good electrician.”