Eskdale’s woman discovers lost phone with photos months after Cyclone Gabrielle

Eskdale's Connie Lilley found her husband's lost phone three months after Cyclone Gabrielle, buried in dirt, but with vivid memories from the day of the flood, February 14.

For Eskdale’s Connie Lilley, the memories of Cyclone Gabrielle weren’t just echoed in her mind, they were buried in the dirt outside her home.

Three months after the floodwaters receded in 2023, Lilley was clearing debris from her garden when she stumbled upon her husband’s lost phone, wedged between the roots of a bush, mud-caked and weather-worn, where the flood had left it behind.

Lilley didn’t expect it to work. But when it powered on, there they were: the photos.

“It was like opening a window back to that exact moment,” she said.

Frozen in time: A photo recovered from the lost phone captures the chaos of Cyclone Gabrielle, just before the flood swallowed it.

As midnight ticked over to February 14, Lilley couldn’t sleep because of the storm.

“We didn’t realise until 4am that the flooding was occurring, and it was right up to our top gate, only about 10m away from the house,” Lilley said.

She and her husband, Gavin, rushed to move their 15-year-old daughter, Drew, who has special needs, upstairs to safety. Then, the pair sprinted across the carpark to their cattery, where eight cats were housed.

“We grabbed the cats by the scruff of their necks and moved them to higher ground in our hospital unit, hoping the water wouldn’t get any higher,” Lilley said.

Less than 10 minutes later floodwater surged through the cattery.

“We got there just in time.”

Back at the house, the couple stood on their front steps, watching the water creep closer.

Found months later, the phone holds a visual record of the Cyclone's impact.

Lilley’s husband set his phone on a window ledge outside, trying to keep it dry as they focused on the crisis unfolding around them.

In the chaos, neither of them noticed when it slipped off.

“When the sun started coming up, the water started to retreat. We were very lucky the house didn’t get flooded,” Lilley said.

Through the storm’s lens: A flood-ravaged screen displaying images of the chaos.

Thanks to their slightly elevated home, the floodwaters stopped about a metre short of their residence, off State Highway 5 behind Eskdale Church.

The flood affected a third of their 4ha lifestyle block, killing some of their sheep but sparing horses and alpacas.

The family’s cattery remained closed for over a year, reopening in March 2024.

They assumed the phone was gone, washed away with so many other things lost to the flood.

For Lilley, the phone is more than just a recovered object, it’s a time capsule, holding fragments of a day that changed everything.

“Looking at those photos now, it’s surreal,” she says.

The pictures, frozen in time, remind Lilley of how quickly life can shift, but also how much they managed to hold on to, she says.