Airdate: SBS News Special: Hard Rain

This Sunday, SBS has scheduled SBS News Special: Hard Rain in which presenter Ricardo Goncalves looks into the damage of natural disasters costing NSW & WA businesses over $1 billion.

After drought, fires and a pandemic, many are struggling to make sense of this latest round of disasters. Yet the Climate Council tells SBS News to expect more of the same as the climate changes.

In a 30 minute special investigation, SBS News investigates the cost of recent extreme weather events – a powerful cyclone and record flooding – on a range of businesses across NSW and WA. With the damage bill predicted to surpass $1 billion, the program asks why these events happened and whether they will keep on happening. Through the eyes of farmers and business owners we learn of catastrophic losses from Cyclone Seroja, which packed winds of up to 170 kilometres per hour and carved a trail of destruction into 1,000 kilometres of Western Australia. Ian Trevarton owns the historic Railway Tavern in the cyclone impacted town of Northampton. Over 16 years he has painstakingly restored to old pub to its former glory. He was drinking in the bar when Seroja lifted the roof off the tavern and stripped the balconies from the building. Today he faces losses of up to $5 million and says it will be at least a year until the place is open for business.

In NSW business owners are using their own funds to rebuild after record flooding, while they wait for government grants and insurance payouts. Owner Nathan Tomkins has completely rebuilt Port Macquarie’s iconic waterfront restaurant Whalebone Wharf after floodwater inundated his dining room. He has used $800,000 of his savings to clean up and restore the building, which has recently reopened for business. Extensive interviews and graphics from the Bureau of Meteorology will explain how the weather systems formed and reveal the role of global warming in these destructive natural disasters.

5pm Sunday on SBS.