THE CLEAN - UP

Usually our little community is quite self -sufficient.
We have a primary school,
4 churches,
an olympic swimming pool,
a sports oval,
a shopping centre with supermarket, hair dresser, newsagent, butcher, fruit & veg shop, chemist, florist
doctors and vets,
a petrol station,
Thai restaurant and pizza take-away.

Of these facilities the churches and school are the only ones not affected by the floods.
75 homes in the low lying areas near the river were flooded to varying degrees. This is probably not a large percentage of the homes in the area so, although we have been isolated and without power for 4 days, a large number of us are fine.
Our freezers and fridges have defrosted in the heat ( 28 -30 C now that the rain has stopped ) so what food we had stored has gone. There has been much sharing and neighbourly barbeque-ing but families with small children ( and there are lots of them, our school has 600+ pupils and climbing rapidly) were beginning to do it tough.

 Finally, yesterday, authorities realised that we were isolated out here and running out of some types of food and now bread, milk, nappies and other essentials are being handed out at the Flood Evacuation Centre to those who need it. There is no fresh fruit and vegetables and there won't be for quite a while as the markets that control distribution of fruit and vegies was completely flooded.

The road towards the city finally emerged from the water around midday yesterday. It's a 20 minute drive through rural acreages to the next suburb and all the facilities it provides ( such as supermarkets and petrol stations ) but when we drove in yesterday the supermarkets were empty and so were the petrol stations. (There were people in cafes drinking coffee and eating cake !!!)

Diminishing petrol supplies (we have half a tank ) mean that we will not make the drive again until we know for sure they have supplies available. There are heaps of people working to clean up our flooded shopping centre and every flooded house has a large band of workers. These workers are being supplied with cold water and sandwiches by the CWA ladies.

The piles of rubbish outside houses is a sorry sight. The awful smell ! Rotting , spoiled food as well as mud containing heaven knows what.

So even though we are no longer isolated by floods, our community continues to cling together. Lack of fuel means we are staying close to home and doing what we can to help our neighbours and progress is pretty rapid there.

The next hurdle is the removal of all the rubbish but our Lord Mayor says he has it under control. Helpers must wear gum boots ( who on earth has those except horsey people ?) or work boots and gloves and in some places masks as airborn bacteria of some kind is causing a type of pnemonia. Our former Prime Minister , Kevin Rudd (a Brisbane resident), was hospitalised after contracting a foot infection from wading in the floodwaters so it is very important to be careful.

 I am sorry this post is lacking photos but it seemed such bad taste to be photographing people's misery.

Cheers.