Hadden Galvin was all of six years old when flood waters ripped through Kempsey in 1949, killing six people, drowning 15,000 head of livestock and washing away 53 homes and businesses.
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Hadden grew up in Kempsey in a house on River St and he can still vividly remember the raging flood waters that almost reached his family's back door.
"I was six years old, living in River St at number 28 at the time and I can still clearly recall looking out over the river from our backyard watching the water stretching to the foothills on the far side of Euroka," he said.
"It's still very visible in my mind. I can remember the huge channel the river cut out of the land and all of the trees and debris that ended up in the river, I think that's what made the viaduct collapse. All of that debris pilling up against it."
Hadden and his family stayed in their home while the flood water rose around them.
"We didn't evacuate and once the water started slowly receding, we knew we were going to be alright."
Hadden and his family were lucky, a number of families in River St lost everything when their homes were washed away with the flood water.
"I remember the Methodist Church, which was a big sturdy brick building just disappeared while the old library on Belgrave St which was a two storey wooden building was still standing," Hadden said.
"One weatherboard house on River St near Cooks Ln floated across the street and just disintegrated and ended up in Hennessy Park.
"And after the water went there was a huge boiler in our backyard just sitting on the riverbank. I don't know where it was from, but it was just there.
"The clean up took a long time, I can remember everyone mopping up and the smell stuck around for weeks after the water had gone, it was horrible."
Hadden and his family survived on meat from their butcher shop and bread from a bakery on Elbow St after the flood.
"There was a lot of destruction in the town once the water receded. We had a milkman that delivered milk on a bike with a side car, our family and a lot of others never ran out of milk because of him."
Although 70 years have passed since the Macleay Valley experienced one of its worst floods on record, Hadden said his memories from late August of 1949 haven't faded.
"Being six years of age, all the events that transpired during the floods remain clearly in my mind."
