This is an ABC podcast.

So my partner woke me up at, I think it was about seven in the morning.

She'd got a SES warning on her phone.

And we've had them before.

You know, it's like a flood risk warning.

So I kind of thought, oh, it's one of those situations again.

So I actually went back to sleep, regrettably.

At 6am in the morning, we did start receiving emergency phone calls to say that the fires were coming.

But I think at that stage we were still skeptical.

You know, it was impossible that we were going to live through what we were going to live

through that night.

Living in Australia can feel like riding a constant roller coaster of natural disasters.

And thanks to climate change, the ride is getting faster and wilder as the years go by.

Flood waters are predicted to reach more than a metre higher than a record set in 1880.

It's been labelled the worst fire season ever recorded, an apocalypse.

And it's not just homes, livelihoods, and in the worst cases, lives that are lost to these disasters, they also

battered the mental health of survivors.

It was maybe two or three weeks later, you know, when the adrenaline completely subsided

and I had this really noticeable mental crash.

But research also suggests most people are pretty resilient in these circumstances.

That doesn't mean they don't struggle, they do, but they eventually bounce back.

Natural disasters have existed since the dawn of time.

...