The Lloyd-Jones' have spent their first night back in their home, almost a year since the devastating April super storm left it uninhabitable.
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They spent Tuesday moving their furniture and belongings back to the Bourke Street house, in central Maitland, which had almost half a metre of water flowing through it during the peak of the storm.
Anthony and Jane are still amazed at the amount of rain that fell around them and remember thinking that April 21 would be a normal wet day.
The kids, Will, 12, and Tom, 10, were watching TV and Mr Lloyd-Jones had gone to pull a tree from a nearby drain pipe so their yard would not flood.
When he returned the water was lapping the floor level and he he knew his family had to pack and get out.
Tom remembers feeling calm as he looked around his bedroom to decide what to take.
He grabbed his iPod, most of his clothes and two teddy bears that he had been given as a baby.
"I didn't panic, [Will and I] got our stuff and went up to the neighbours house while mum and dad lifted up furniture," Tom said.
"We've never seen that much water there."
Mrs Lloyd-Jones is so proud of the resilience her sons showed. She said watching the rising water from a drain on Athel D’Ombrain Drive, which backs onto their property, was an overwhelming experience and initially she was walking around the house wondering what to save.
“The water came up so quickly,” she said.
“I grabbed two chests with all of our photo albums and got them out, I wanted to be sure I saved them.”
The timber house, which has been home for more than a decade, has been raised so it is more than one metre off the ground.
It cost around $60,000 to lift it, but Mr Lloyd-Jones said it was worth every cent because it was the family’s “insurance policy against another big storm”.
“We couldn’t go through it again, at least now we know it’s going to take a big storm to get up to that level,” he said.
“It’s been a roller coaster of a year, there’s been a lot of highs and lows. We’re glad to be back but there’s still work to do on the house.”
Mr Lloyd-Jones urged homeowners to check their insurance policy and make sure they were fully covered.
“ We’ve basically got a new house. Allianz was great processing our claim and getting work started,” he said.
