After the peak has passed...

Brisbane is still enduring the effects of a devastating flood; and along with nearby Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley, 80% of our state of Queensland has been declared a natural disaster zone. That is an area of 1 000 000 square kilometres, or the area of France and Germany combined. For those of you who know about Hurricane Katrina in the USA two years ago, that covered an area of 230 000 sq km. In addition large tracts of New South Wales and Victoria are also under threat from floods right now, so you could be looking at an area almost the size of Western Europe - unbelievable!

This gives you a little idea, but you have to understand that the Brisbane River is a delta river and meanders along towards the bay and ocean. We are the only Australian capital city with such a river.
The photo above I took, and it shows some of the many, many train sets 'parked' along high tracks that wouldn't get flooded. They stayed there for three days. There were dozens and dozens of three car trains nose to nose along every secure track in Brisbane, guarded 24/7.

The town house of a friend went under up to the steps into the first floor, but the basement plus his things in storage went under. He only arrived back from the UK that morning as the waters were inundating the city. It is just at the bottom of the long white roof, towards the left. He was very fortunate it went no further.

This lovely home featured in my last blog before Christmas. It went under - somewhere in the picture below. It is three blocks back from the river, but it went up to the third shelf in the kitchen cupboards. An army of friends and family plus other unknown volunteers swung into action to help clean up the mess and dump dishwashers and stoves etc onto the footpaths. We had plans to go as a second wave to relieve tired cleaners, but it was truly impossible to enter the area by car - the streets were a veritable car park - so we stayed put high and dry in our home.

The pictures are all a day old, so the peak had been past and the river was slowly receding, but the thick mud and the smell was still very fresh indeed. I have a link, but you'll have to copy and paste in your browser, of the floods across Brisbane from the air. The house mentioned above is in the middle, but you can scroll up and across to see other areas too. Quite fascinating: http://www.nearmap.com/?q=crowthers@-27.5071699,153.0202623&ll=-27.50709,153.020334&z=21&t=k&nmd=20110113

Other parts of the state had floods before the New Year, and Condamine has gone through its third inundation (with consequent evacuations) and Dalby just past Toowoomba to the west has had five - YES, FIVE floods - and at the moment that seems to be it, but we're only at the beginning of the season for rains and who knows what will be next? I know there are no more records to be broken for coldest this, wettest that, hottest this and so on...Mother Nature has thrown it all at us this past few months, but we will endure and learn from all of this.

The picture (above) is of the runway at Rockhampton Airport, now closed for two weeks and due to reopen next Monday (24th). They have been doing it really tough in Central Queensland too, and it's hard to keep all the disasters in mind as you live with the local one that seems to consume one, yet you have to remember those other communities doing it tough. Some have lived without power for three weeks so far and food drops.

Rene and I arrived back last Monday from NZ to the news of a wall of water hitting first Toowoomba, then the communities in the Lockyer Valley between Toowoomba and Brisbane. Toowoomba is my old home town, and it is 700m above sea level. At 3pm last Monday the incessant rain got heavier suddenly, and a wall of water swept through the city centre washing cars and people away. There a mother and son died - just out that afternoon shopping for school clothes and books for the return to school this coming week.

This massive downpour of over 1 hour also drenched the ranges leading down to the valley floor below, and thus an 8m high wall of water descended upon an unsuspecting series of communities washing away not only homes and crops but also the people huddled inside the homes - there was no warning! Nothing in recorded history had ever happened like this before, and the valley was settled for farming 150 years ago. 18 died there, and a further 27 are still missing, but sadly they are dead - just not found. I had a first hand report of a mother wearing just a gold bracelet on her arm, nothing else. She was alive, but her husband and two children were washed away and still missing.

This week I read of Sri Lanka and Brazil having equally tragic floods, with many more deaths and of course the economic cost associated with them. This is not a competition for most bodies or most cost - all are tragedies - but this is personal, here in Queensland and the rest of Australia, and I can tell you nearly a week later 10 000 homes will probably never be habitable again, 7000 businesses are without power, 27 000 homes have no power yet. Five towers in the Brisbane CBD still are without power, and this afternoon three towers lost power again and workers sent home. Our leading hotel, the Stamford Plaza, is still closed, and many basements are full of water and mud.

As I type, a severe storm is happening across our region, so there could be more fun and games, but also there's a chance some heavy rain might wash away some extra layers of mud.

(edit - just ran downstairs and retrieved washing from the line - I was so engrossed in writing this blog that I didn't notice it very dark and threatening - saved it all except for a few spots)

I just can't convey the enormity of the tragedy in the Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba. We have lost streets and properties to the water, but nothing like the walls of water that swept people away last Monday. The world has seen it on their local TV news plus BBC World and CNN - hence the flood of emails and calls from around Australia and the world (thanks, we appreciated your concern). Rene and I are high and dry, and our local creek that has on occasions flooded did not go beyond its banks this time because the rain stopped at 5pm Tuesday - it isn't connected to the river in any way. The rain stopped, our creek subsided, so that on Wednesday morning as houses began going under along the river in Ipswich and Brisbane we looked out to a very low creek indeed.

It was very sudden in Toowomba and the Lockyer valley, almost without warning.

Another family out shopping when the wall of water hit. I met a family from Grantham in Lincolnshire (UK) Sunday morning at the airport heading back home and they had been in the Toowoomba Coffee Club 10 minutes prior to the flood - their meter was expiring, so after debating to move the car and stay or go back to their relative's home, they decided since it was raining they'd drive off - five minutes before the wall of water swept through the city centre. How lucky!

The Coffee Club is upper left of the intersection (above). Amazing film features on You Tube.

There is a weird feeling of guilt in my mind as I think how lucky we are and how unfortunate others are, yet we have to go on and assist in the recovery of the state. Estimates so far are of a bill for A$20b, mostly borne by the Federal Government. The insurance industry is in for a major hit too, with many expensive residences along the river here in Brisbane suffering very expensive damage. Everyone affected was given $1000 per adult and $400 per child by the Federal Government to cover immediate incidentals, and that was immediately available to applicants the next day. Mobile banks set up at evacuation centres, and the defence force immediately had troops and equipment deployed to the various regions as events unfolded over the last three weeks. Our Premier, not exactly the most popular politician in the state, has been lauded for her performance as the crisis unfolded. No end of people have said to me of their surprise and pleasure in being able to commend her. All of our agencies have worked together in a fantastic way up to now, but the true test will be in the long term because this isn't going to be cleaned up inside of a month or two - this will take easily two years or more to be fully rebuilt and operational.

Here in Nundah were without milk for three days and bread for two - bloody lucky! Some poor sods in the centre of the state are likely to need food drops for weeks ahead, but at least the major roads are open again to trucks. Fruit and veggies will be short for quite some time, but I've been absolutely amazed at how the logistics to supply food in an emergency have swung into operation - most impressed! Example would be the main Rocklea Markets which is central in distribution of fruit and vegetables across the state, and it was totally submerged, yet yesterday reopened (well, three quarters of it did).

I went to the airport after a call went out for Ambassadors to come and assist the overrun information desk at International. Four of us turned up on Wednesday, and five on Thursday - although we eventually sent two home because it was less intense by then. There were 150 pax camped in International and 250 at Domestic. Many were evacuated from their City accommodation, many back packers too, and they made it to the airport because they thought it might close. Well, there was no way it was closing or close to it, but they were happy to be there. Getting to the airport was difficult too, because roads were blocked and transport running erratically, or not at all. It was rewarding to help there and to assist very confused pax who were, in some cases, totally unaware of what was happening in Brisbane, and the rest of the state. One example was a French couple with no English who had transport booked to the city and a hotel, but couldn't understand why it wasn't happening, and our regular French speaker was not working that night (helping in the floods) so we employed a translation service to assist. Others working on a remote Pacific island building a school returned with only the rumours from the plane, and I know how limiting that can be because we returned from NZ to be told by the taxi driver of the Toowoomba flood, and I couldn't comprehend the details at all.

That's enough! I hope this has filled you in a little. I know it's a bit wordy, but it has been good to sit down and write this account.

Next time I'll write something on our brilliant trip to New Zealand. It was marvellous! I'll also mention my cousin Rachel who will be visiting us next summer with her family. Exciting news!