BACK IN TOUCH AFTER THE FLOODS

Hello, hello all my blogland mates.

It's sooo nice to be back.

Many thanks for all your kind thoughts.

We've now come through the worst and I have lots to tell you about the terribble flood we have been through.

Where to start?

I guess the river is the best place.

This is the Brisbane River that flows right through the centre of Brisbane.

 It's a very windy river - it winds quite a torturous path as it moves towards the bay

and the suburb where I live is on the western outskirts of Brisbane where the river makes a big loop - almost a circle before it heads off towards the city centre.

After an enormous amount of rain our slow, lazy river turned into this raging torrent.

Although we have a dam especially constructed to control the amount of water that comes down the river in these situations more water was going into the dam from runoff than they could release and the dam was filling rapidly to a very dangerous level.

Add this to a raging torrent from another river which flows into it right here at our suburb and we have a recipe for disaster.

On top of all this we had a King Tide which stopped the water flowing out to sea and acted like a plug, causing the water to rise very rapidly.

So, the morning after the shelves at the local supermarket were emptied as I told you in my previous post,  we woke to find the supermarket looked like this.

The top of the dark line is the water level - nearly to the top of the roof !

The power went off at 4:00am as water compromised repeater stations and wires became dangerously close to the rising flood.

We became cut off from the city and neighbouring suburbs in all directions and the water continued to rise steadily.

All we could do was watch the water rise and help where we could as homes quickly were inundated with this creeping brown horror. At least the rain stopped.

Upstream  a huge wall of water had swept away several rural hamlets, whole houses swept away with their occupants peering out the windows in terror.

There are still some 50+ people missing with the death toll now numbering 10 confirmed.

To their horror these kayakists thought they had come across a dead body floating amongst the trees in a suburban street.

Imagine their delight when they found it was just the Flight Centre Man from outside a travel agent's shop !!

A welcome bit of fun at a terrible time.

So here we sat, luckily for us high and dry, but with many of our neighbours having to be evacuated from their homes clutching their treasures.

For some there was time to move valuables, take some clothes, photos but most had to leave furniture behind or moved it upstairs only to have the floodwaters rise so high it was in vain.

So we watched and waited.

The temperature was around 26 degrees C with

no power for refrigeration,

no power for charging mobile phones,

no power for powering computers or recharging laptops,

no power for radios

no power for lights.

We were completely cut off.

All we knew from snippets on the car radio was that everywhere along the river was badly flooded.

We tried to make the food in our freezers last as long as we could - didn't open the doors and used all the perishables first but milk and butter don't last long in the heat and cold drinks didn't stay cold for long either.

By this morning many of us were emptying out our freezers, cooking what we could and sharing with our neighbours. Lots of food had to be discarded  - no taking chances with spoiled food at times like these.

Most were doing OK but families with small children fared the worst without bread, butter and milk.

This morning I cooked up a big curry and we shared it tonight with friends from down the street who were out of meat and vegies. 

Tomorrow we were ready to start on tinned food, eggs, pasta - plenty of food we would not starve!!! 

Then power was restored!

Fantastic

Then the flood water went down as quickly as it rose and we were back in touch with the rest of the world and left with a legacy of stinking MUD and rubbish as well as sodden, muddy furnishings

 

So now the clean-up begins.

We have power but no shops so we'll start on the canned food.

Everyone is pitching in and helping eachother with this heartbreaking task.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers.

PS. My Favourite Thing for FTF is   electricity !!