River Murray Recovery Stories

River Murray Recovery Stories
Podcast Description
The 2022 River Murray floods in South Australia were caused by record water inflows from the Murray-Darling Basin due to heavy upstream rainfall. The slowly rising floodwaters inundated homes, businesses, and farmland, causing widespread displacement, infrastructure damage, and agricultural losses. The disaster significantly impacted local economies, communities, and the region’s long-term recovery.
In this special limited series of Kintsugi Heroes, John Milham sits down with members of the Riverlands community and gives them space to share their experiences of their personal adversity and community resilience. It's only through connection and empathy that there can be a path to recovery.
These stories of trauma can be confronting. If you find they have a triggering effect, please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe.
Now listen in as John takes you to the River Murray Recovery Stories with Kintsugi Heroes.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The series explores themes of community resilience, personal adversity, and recovery efforts following the River Murray floods, highlighting specific stories such as Tony Siviour's management of the Renmark levees, Paul Smith's photography documenting the flood's impact, and John Milham’s reflections on community support.

The 2022 River Murray floods in South Australia were caused by record water inflows from the Murray-Darling Basin due to heavy upstream rainfall. The slowly rising floodwaters inundated homes, businesses, and farmland, causing widespread displacement, infrastructure damage, and agricultural losses. The disaster significantly impacted local economies, communities, and the region’s long-term recovery.
In this special limited series of Kintsugi Heroes, John Milham sits down with members of the Riverlands community and gives them space to share their experiences of their personal adversity and community resilience. It’s only through connection and empathy that there can be a path to recovery.
These stories of trauma can be confronting. If you find they have a triggering effect, please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe.
Now listen in as John takes you to the River Murray Recovery Stories with Kintsugi Heroes.
Dr Rob Gordon is a psychotherapist who specialises in trauma caused by natural and other disasters. He has been a consultant to the Victorian government and the Red Cross for disasters since 1989.
In this podcast, Rob gives us a powerful and detailed explanation of the effects trauma resulting from disasters and describes strategies for healing. He is warm and compassionate, and his examples which all come from his experience over many years, illustrate the complexity of the human response to tragic events and explain why it can take many years to recover.
He explains the deep-seated reorganisation of people’s lives as they face the loss of their homes and routines and, in some cases, their friends and family who cannot cope with the enormity of supporting them. And how the stress from the trauma creates tunnel vision as they have to deal with multiple challenges at once, including loss of identity.
As Rob points out the most crucial ingredient of healing from this type of trauma is to have personal contact with others, strong support and social networks.
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We hope that you enjoyed this episode of River Murray Recovery Stories, brought to you by Kintsugi Heroes.
Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.
If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here – https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/con…
We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!
Warmly,
The Kintsugi Heroes team

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