Oral history interview, Lisa Fraser
Production date
08 Jun 2023
About this object
Lisa Fraser was interviewed by Bryce Doudle on Wonnarua Country at Maitland City Library on the 8th of June 2023, as part of the Maitland Library’s Oral History Project. The aim of this project was to record oral history interviews form a diverse cross-section of the Maitland community impacted by recent flooding events.
Born in Sydney, Lisa and her family moved to the rural village of Vacy when she was three. Lisa attended local Maitland schools including Maitland High school and Rutherford High school, before returning to Sydney in her twenties. Lisa relocated to both Brisbane and then Perth before returning to the Maitland area to be close with family still in the area.
This interview covers Lisa’s experiences during the 2015 April floods that effected Maitland and its suburbs. Lisa details her memories of the rising flood waters, and her decision to leave her East Maitland home. Initially calm and methodical, using the skills she had developed in her career in events management, Lisa recalls the moments of evacuating to higher ground with her teenage daughter, taking only an overnight bag, a plastic crate with important documents and the family dog.
Lisa describes monitoring social media for flood updates on community pages, and the moment she came across a photograph posted of her home inundated by flood water. Lisa further shares the experience of visiting her home once flood water receded, assessing, and recording the damage done by the forceful water, and negotiating with her insurance provider for immediate assistance.
Lisa discussed the emotional toll experiencing this natural disaster event had on herself and her daughter.
She described the community support of having “an army of people” helping during the clean-up and further reflects on the sense of connection between others in the community effected by this flooding events. Lisa closes with her observations on new development in Maitland and how future flooding could continue to impact the community.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this interview are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of Maitland City Council. If you have concerns about material made available on this website, please contact us at opened.minds@maitland.nsw.gov.au.
See full details
Object detail
Share
Related highlights
Subject auto tags
The development of the Maitland City Council online collection is an ongoing process. Despite our best efforts, there may be errors or omissions in the information provided and we welcome input from the public. In some cases, items may not be attributed to their author due to a lack of documented provenance at this time. Maitland City Council acknowledges the intellectual property and moral rights of the makers and authors who remain anonymous. If you have concerns about the material made available on this website, including any unintentional infringement of copyright, you are highly encouraged to contact us at opened.minds@maitland.nsw.gov.au.
