A couple of weeks has passed since what will undoubtedly be known forever more as the "great floods of 2011". It took the entire city by surprise really, which is strange in itself since this is at least the third time flooding has engulfed Brisbane and wrought significant damage.
Of course the media, in it's inexorable desire to keep us all in a state of fear, looked for the worst possible outcome, and then evidence to support the premise. The evidence was there - all signs indicated a bigger flood than
the '74 floods. At work I realised that there was a potential for disaster, Eagle Farm (the suburb where our head office resides) had indeed been identified as being potentially subject to overflow from the surge of water coming down from the hills and the man-made dams which were at bursting point. So we worked through the options available to us, and did what we could to ensure our jobs were done. Aside from the technology options, we fetched 5 tons of sandbags and somewhat futilely bagged up the office. We felt better about it, even if deep down we all thought it was fairly pointless.
I got a text message from our council early on the Tuesday, advising that flash flooding was occurring in Caboolture and Morayfield (10k's away) at which point I decided it was time to go. Best to be home with the family safe and together should the worst happen. We were a lot more concerned about flash flooding than river overflow where we were - flash flooding caused the
Toowoomba phenomenon that had occurred in previous days and had proven to be a real and frightening possibility.
So Tuesday night was tense, as we stayed glued to the TV waiting for new information. It was addictive - I found that I dare not walk away from the TV the entire night lest I miss a vital piece of info. Wednesday night and early Thursday mornings were "crunch" times;
King Tide combined with the run-off from the west, combined also with the staged release of mega-litres of dammed water had the media stirred up with expressions of "worst flood EVER" magnitude. Old reporters who had witnessed the '74 floods were dusted off and flown in to provide comparison pieces and essentially perform a pointless task, which was to articulate what was clearly being shown visually - that the Brisbane river was slowly but surely edging up the banks and seeping into the surrounding suburbs.
It was a surreal situation - the entire city was closed down and we all collectively held our breaths as 3.00am Thursday came and went. The river did indeed burst it's banks and water flooded into the city, and (at last count) around 11,500 houses built on the flood plain. It wasn't as bad as in '74, but still pretty bad. Entire suburbs went under, in some cases 2 metres under. The ongoing high tides kept the water levels high for a few days after too, so those affected had no choice but to sit and wait it out at friends, or in worst cases in make-shift emergency accommodations set up on higher ground. We counted ourselves lucky we weren't hit hard.
10 days on, and we were driving through the same areas that a week before had been deluged. That was surreal too - looking at the buildings flying by as we drove through, we could see the water mark clearly almost at the top of the first floor on most of the buildings. A lot of construction was already underway clearing up the affected homes, and allowing people to get back to their houses to basically start again.
So, that was the floods. Perhaps we won't get more, but with
El Nino hanging around for at least the next few (summer) months, who knows? This is the worst part, it could all happen again before summer is over.
The politicians and media have all capitalised on the situation, as you would expect I suppose. Bligh, who until the floods was well on the way out, will no doubt go on to claim her steadfast leadership during the crisis proves some ability which, until the flooding occurred, was seemingly not in evidence. She was good I suppose, at the very least she was regular with her updates. But the rhetoric! "We are Queenslanders"... implying we are somehow "tougher" than other peoples, I thought was pretty pointless. We are people... shit happens, and people generally pick up and start putting their lives back together.
We remain thankful that, at least this time, we were largely unaffected.
From the big city to the farm, we sometimes visit our friend’s neighbour’s property and help feed the cows, let the dogs have a run, pat the horses and try to stop Missy from eating the chooks. Recently a very lucky Oscar got to have a drive of the “buggy”. Caroline, we applaud you for your courage and patience!
