It feels like their lives were in our hands
‘We were prepared for the worst’
Priscila Moses, Pharmacy Manager at Territory Pharmacy Terrace shares a first-hand account of how her team and authorities delivered critical medicines to their community during the flood crisis.
Despite living in Katherine for 17 years, I had never experienced a flood before.
That changed on March 6.
I stepped outside our store on Katherine Terrace and noticed water coming up through the road drains. Something didn’t feel right. I called my partner, who is a Katherine local, and as soon as I described what I was seeing, he warned me a flood was coming.
Inside the pharmacy, it quickly became panic stations.
There were four of us working that day, and suddenly people from hospitals, clinics and the local community began arriving at the store, many urgently needing their medications before the town became cut off.
By 1pm we were told we would need to evacuate the store.
But people kept arriving, knocking on the door, asking for their medication. Many rely on their prescriptions every day, and we knew how serious it could be if they went without them.
For the next hour we worked as quickly as we could, handing medications through the front door one patient at a time.
It was chaotic, but we understood their panic and felt we couldn’t simply turn people away.
By 2pm the water was rising rapidly and we had no choice but to leave.
Before evacuating, we moved as much medication as we could onto higher shelves to try to minimise damage and ensure we could still help the community once the floodwaters receded.
Within hours, water began flowing into the pharmacy.
Two days later I received a call from one of the local aged care homes. They were desperate for medication supplies.
Many residents had been evacuated to emergency shelters set up at Katherine High School and Casuarina Street Primary School. Without their daily medicines, some of these residents would quickly become very unwell.
We knew we had to act.
On March 8 I spoke with police about entering the pharmacy to retrieve medications. At the time the floodwaters were still too high and it was considered too dangerous.
The following day the water levels had dropped slightly, and the Northern Territory Government arranged for us to enter the pharmacy with a police escort.
When we went inside, it was completely dark. There was no power, and we relied on torches to see where we were going.
The water was still knee-deep. We were literally wading through the pharmacy.
We gathered as many medications as we could, working as quickly as possible.
However, the road conditions meant police were unable to transport the medicines to the shelters for us.
With their permission, my partner drove his four-wheel-drive to the pharmacy, and we loaded the medications into the vehicle before delivering them to the fire station, which was the designated collection point.
When we handed over the medicines, it was an incredibly emotional moment.
We knew those medications were essential for many vulnerable people in the community.
It felt like their lives were in our hands.
Our store remains closed to the public while we assess damage and organise repairs, but our team continues working to prepare medications and ensure the Katherine community remains supplied and safe.
The past week has been one of the most stressful experiences of my career. We had to stay calm and keep helping people, even though we were also worried about what might happen to our patients.
Katherine has been my home for 17 years, and the people here mean so much to me and my colleagues.
In times like this, you simply do whatever you can to help your community.