Most people who lived through the flood and talked about it found the aftermath devastating as well. My family home only had flood waters up to the skirting boards but there was flood mud to be cleared out afterwards, all the way through the house. Other houses were completely washed away or the flood waters reached up to the roof.
At the theatre event we were told that where we were sitting was under a couple of metres of water at the time.
I only found out yesterday that the State Emergency Service (SES) was formed as a result of the Maitland flood in 1955. There was a huge flood mitigation project undertaken in the years afterwards too, so other flood events did not affect the area as badly as the 1955 flood.