The Flood

The most notable aspect of the Queensland floods is that everyone was affected. Everyone you talk to has stories about family members, friends and colleagues who have lost possessions, their livelihood and even their homes. I know a friend who was forced to swim from the balcony of his second-floor unit for fear of being trapped. Another friend spent a night sleeping on top of a pool table as the water rose up through the floor boards. And my girl friend's family woke to find knee-deep water surrounding their house. They evacuated her grandmother and the children before returning a few hours later to find their house almost completely submerged. They lost everything they own.

I counted myself among the lucky ones to live in a suburb far enough removed from the river to avoid flooding. I didn't even lose power throughout the week. As I worked from home, news reports of rising water levels in the Brisbane and Ipswich areas flowed in through the TV. First the banks of rivers broke in one suburb and then another. The rain kept falling and Anna Bligh appeared almost continually on television providing honest assessments of the danger and losses expected as a result of the floods. For most of us, it was a time of anxious waiting. Thousands of Brisbane residents flocked to social networking sites to share their stories and find word of their friends and loved ones. I found myself searching for status updates from those I knew to be in flood affected areas. As the flood waters rose and power to streets and suburbs was turned off, the updates from my friends transitioned from their PCs to mobile devices before they stopped altogether. When contact with friends and family was lost, I found myself hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

Eventually the rain stopped and the flood began receding. As the water flowed out of affected suburbs, volunteers armed with shovels, buckets and brooms flowed in. Two days after the flood peak, water still pooled in low points. The road and foot paths were covered in mud caked dry in one street while in another they were lost in a mire of septic sludge.  Cars packed the streets parked in drive ways, on the nature strip and tightly up against the curb. Those cars on the road fought for the limited space with pedestrians, trucks, buses, and earth moving machines transforming normally sleepy suburban byways into choked up arteries. The traffic made it impossible for trucks and bobcats to remove many of the great heaps of debris which sat in front of every house. I helped clear a home of its contents. We moved furniture, kitchen utensils, electronic equipment, books and DVDs. Others ripped warped plaster and insulation from the walls. It was disturbing how little could be saved. We were a group of 15 helping the home owners clean up the aftermath. We took to the walls and floors with gurneys and brooms, blasting and sweeping the mud literally out the front door. With almost all the taps in the suburb turned on, the water pressure was so low (without a gurney) it took several minutes to fill a small bucket. The volume of mud and debris made the house a dangerous place. The threat of infection was so high that even the slightest scratch must be cleaned and covered immediately. Truly, after seeing the state of the suburb of Yeronga I will never use the word disaster lightly again.

Amid all the loss you might expect a sober mood among the home owners and volunteers. As a credit to the resilience of the Queensland spirit, everyone assisting in the clean up was bound by a determined and efficacious mindset. Those not sweeping, shovelling or carrying debris walked the streets offering sandwiches and water. Others set up rest stops where a worker could clean his hands and enjoy a sausage sizzle and a cup of tea. The generosity was overwhelming. The sense of community was incredible. Though the reconstruction of Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba and surrounding towns will take many months, there is no doubt that it will be rebuilt better than ever on the back of a community united and a spirit unbroken.