After being evicted from her short-term accommodation to make way for tourists, flood victim Margaret was left with nowhere else to go.

“I would have been homeless, living out of my car with two dogs,” the 79-year-old said.

After panicking all afternoon about where she would end up, Margaret, who asked that her surname not be published, received a last-minute call from the state-led Community Recovery Program informing her she would have a roof over her head for at least another week.