Community bands together after floods leave Tarcutta pub with no beer

In the space of just a few weeks, the Tarcutta Pub was hit by floods not once, but twice as severe storms and heavy rains lashed the region last month.

Emma and Brandon Reynolds bought the pub in March, putting a "little bit of love into the building and the community" over the next three months.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Ms Reynolds said the oval out the back of the pub has been waterlogged up to nine times.

However things turned pear-shaped when the pub was inundated on two of those occasions, destroying the temprite system that enabled them to deliver some of the "coldest beer in Australia" on tap.

"Because of the storm[s] and flash flooding on October 31 and November 1, the water came [inside and] over and down into the compressor, which blew it up," Ms Reynolds said.

"That in turn blew up the keg system and fridge system too, so we can no longer store our alcohol in there."

Fortunately, the Reynolds managed to save the beer from the floodwaters.

"It came up into the pub and... [as a result] we lost the beer lines, so we became a pub with no beer," Ms Reynolds said.

The pub was hit by another serious delay after a nearly 24-hour power outage in mid-November.

"The energy went out and caused the bulge pump to stop working, flooding the already broken system again," Ms Reynolds said.

"So we haven't had much luck lately."

Following the floods, she said members of the community have thrown their support behind the pub.

"They have messaged us and called us offering to help, which is really nice, because we're trying to create an environment that is not only welcoming for people to drop in and have a chat, but also the travellers and truckies are now starting to return," Ms Reynolds said.

Fortunately, the pub has borrowed a 'magic box' from Thirsty Crow, allowing four lines of beer to be hooked up at once.

However, the pub owners are still waiting to turn their beer tap back on.

Ms Reynolds said the flood repair bill has already racked up about $50,000.

While the family usually avoids seeking support, the latest floods have changed their mind.

As a result, Ms Reynolds paid the flood recovery centre a visit after it opened its doors at Wagga's Civic Centre this week.

"We've never used any of these services before because we've simply been too proud to ask, but sometimes you've got to realise when you do need help," she said.

"This one stop shop has been great for us."

The flood recovery centre opened its doors in Wagga on Wednesday and Thursday, with a range of organisations offering their support to affected members of the community.

Services available included Services Australia, NSW Legal Aid, Red Cross, NSW Health, Rural Financial Counselling Service, Salvation Army and Resilience NSW.

During that time, a mixture of small business, landholders and individuals accessed support services there.

ResNSW Riverina Murray region manager Linda Thomas said the main purpose of the centre is to provide a "one stop shop" where people can come and talk in person to a variety of services to find out what types of assistance are available for short and long term recovery from disasters.

"The services have their disaster recovery specialists in place with in depth knowledge of the various advice, grants, other funding, information, advocacy, counselling and referral pathways to meet the needs of everyone in the community including rural, residential, business and agricultural," Ms Thomas said.

"The key message to the community is if they have sustained some damage to their home or business, call the SES on 132 500 to organise a rapid damage assessment.

"Pending the result of that, clean ups and washouts of homes can also be organised."

Ms Thomas said the SES have already completed a number of damage assessments around Gumly Gumly and North Wagga.

Wagga Council partnered with Resilience NSW to host the pop-up centre and Mayor Dallas Tout said it is important to continue providing support to flood-affected members of the community after the floods subside.

"After the event is in some ways more important than during the event," Cr Tout said.

"That flood may have impacted them emotionally, physically or financially."

Wagga Council CEO Scott Gray said while a lot of support services are available online, the face to face services are also important.

Mr Gray said while a lot of areas were inundated, Wagga came away "better than expected" from the recent flood event.

"There are people who have been inundated in the flood plain, and we are working with them as best we can to provide whatever services they need to get back up and running," he said.

Wagga Council are offering free tipping for local flood affected residents to dispose of flood waste and additional kerb side pickups of flood waste.

The service is only available for affected properties in areas such as North Wagga, Gumly Gumly and Oura. To register or for more information contact: 1300 292 442

ResNSW is supporting impacted councils across the region to host Recovery Assistance Points at the following locations over the coming week:

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: