In 2022, a major flood event occurred in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, Australia. Critically, governments and emergency services failed to respond in a timely manner to the emergency, and the community was left to save itself. Women played key roles in addressing safety, wellbeing and developing community responsiveness. We discuss expressions of women-focused leadership and argue that this is frequently taken for granted, although critical to a community’s survival. Women incorporated continuous communications of practical lifesaving information and messages of hope: social media was used to develop networks supporting recovery. Women establishing community-based hubs providing immediate practical help. Common to the five hubs we discuss was that they were a point of reference and hope for a traumatized community. Importantly, the hubs were culturally informed by First Nations ways of knowing, doing and being and a dominant feature of the two Aboriginal-led hubs We present a narrative literature review and thematic analysis of interviews and focus groups with 24 women and non-binary people. Our analysis focuses on one particular emergent theme—the significance of women’s disaster leadership and elements of a transferable model of radical community responsiveness.