The floods may be receding in areas of NSW, but the impact of the disaster will be felt for months, even years.
Popular House Rules winners from 2018, Bega Valley dairy farmers Toad and Mandy Heffernan, know well the fear of an impending disaster.
Their historic Candelo homestead - beautifully renovated as part of the television show - and their livelihood, the farm, was under almost constant threat during the 2019-2020 bushfires on the South Coast.
Mandy and the children, Lenny and Layla, had to be evacuated at short notice for a few nights, so Toad could concentrate on saving their home.
"We were surrounded by fire from north, west and south. There were fires there for over a few weeks, obviously. We didn't know too much about what was happening day to day but we knew we had to keep on milking the cows," he said.
"Generally when bushfires come, we're pretty much covered because we've got irrigation on the paddocks, but coming through at the end of that drought, we didn't have a blade of grass on the place. The dirt was burning.
"We didn't want to think about losing anything, we just wanted to fight. You lose your house, you've got nowhere to live. You lose your cows, you've got no income. You lose your family, you've got nothing."
Mandy's parents and grandparents stayed with them as the fire burnt their properties near Eden, but did not destroy their homes.
"I think the three weeks when it was coming and then not coming and changing direction, was really confusing, scary, on edge," Mandy said.
"I went to an evacuation centre and then came home and then went back because the fire was coming again and every time I drove away from the house, I couldn't believe this could be the last time I saw it standing."
In the heat of the moment, she took nothing of sentimental value, just clothes. In hindsight, she would have taken her wedding dress and the outfits her children wore coming home after being born at Canberra Hospital. It made her consider what items were really important to them.
"When the fires stopped and everything had settled down, I was looking around and thinking, 'Oh, my God, there are just so many things you do not think of that you might not see again'," she said.
The Heffernans are helping insurer Allianz Australia to promote a new way to save irreplaceable items such as letters, children's artwork and photographs. Memory Safe, powered by Memories.com.au, allows the items to be uploaded, creating an online storage of items such as photos, films, letters and recipes so they can preserved for future generations.
Mandy said she knew of people on the South Coast suffering even more a year after the fires because they were starting to understand the scale of their loss and their little treasures they could never replace.
"It's really heartbreaking," she said.
New research from Allianz Australia shows Australians consider belongings filled with sentimental value, such as old photos, children's artwork or treasured letters, to be irreplaceable (95 per cent).
However, while most of the nation (76 per cent) insures big-ticket items like the fridge, lounge or TV - objects that can be repaired or replaced through home and/or contents insurance - only 42 per cent of Australians have a plan to protect the items that are most cherished but typically carry little financial value.
