My family and I had been on holiday back in Malaysia last week. It had been raining quite a bit in Brisbane even before we left for KL just before Christmas. It’s rather common at this time of the year around this part of Australia – it’s just the same in Malaysia too. I never thought it would be really bad until one day a friend sent a news link entitled, “Floods "of biblical proportions" hit Australia's Northeast”. I told our friends and relatives not to worry as we are outside of the flood area. Boy was I too optimistic (more of ignorant actually)!
We arrived back in Brisbane on Monday night greeted by yet some more rain. All the news were about the rain and some flooded area in some remote parts of Queensland. The first real “warning” came when I was woken up by a call from my doctor’s office early Tuesday morning. I was supposed to have an appointment with him that morning but his office told me that he was stranded as the area where he lives in Toowoomba was flooding. Toowoomba is just 1½ hours away from where we live and now the flood does sounds real!
My wife went out to get some groceries. She came back with horror stories on how she had to queue up for hours at the supermarket checkout and all bread and milk were running out fast (in Malaysia it would have been rice and sardines gone first!). She had to wait at the neighbourhood bakery for them to bake more bread as people were waiting. When she went to fill up the car, most of the cars she bumped into at the petrol station were already filled up to the brim with their belongings as people were rushing out from the area.
After that everything happened so fast – I was informed that my office was being closed down as some people need to rush home to prepare their house for the oncoming flood. Some of the roads were being closed off as the water level kept rising. I have to admit that even at that point, I still feel of it like a distant event – just like when you live in KL and heard about the flood in Kelantan and Terengganu. Sometime around noon our next door neighbour, who realized that we just arrived home the night before came to tell us about the flood and how our area is going to be hit pretty bad. They are all preparing their house for the flood, and for the worst eventuality of having to evacuate. Then it really struck us – THIS IS FOR REAL!!!
I also learnt that our neighbour across the street have already evacuated and as I stepped outside, the street seems quiet but I can see all other occupants of the houses on our street were busy working on something in their house. Lucky for those with enough manpower in their household as this could be very physically demanding. My team consists of me with a back problem, my wife, my 14 year old daughter, 11 year old son and the youngest one, 6 whom I think would not be contributing much. Anyway, we have to do a lot and we have to do it quick. We quickly change the TV channel to the continuous local news that talks about nothing but the weather and particularly the progress of the flood. It was really bad. At that point 10 died and about 50 missing and it was expected that more than 50 suburbs could be underwater in the next 48 hours. The worst ever flood in Queensland history was in 1974 which was in meteorological measure, a 100-year event. And now, this one is described as being worse than that.
With the limited resources that we had we quickly went into Stage 1 of our effort – moving as many things as we can to the upper floor of the house. To be honest I don’t really know what is required for me to do. I have never had any experience of facing a flood or any kind of natural disaster in my life. It was good to get some tips from the neighbour, some info from the internet and a wife who grew up in Pekan, Pahang, where flood is more or less an annual event. But one thing I learnt fairly quickly was; what do we plan for? Do we move everything upstairs? Do we stock up food and necessities and man the fort? Or do we secure the house then run away and pray that it will survive the torment? Do we plan for the worst or just do as much as we can?
My wife said, do as much as we can – so we start grabbing what we can and put them all upstairs. Kudos to my kids who worked so hard walking up and down the stairs carrying as much as they could. I can carry a lot but dare not make too many trips climbing up for fear of my back and knees giving way; the kids on the other hand can walk up and down as many times as they wanted to but couldn’t carry much. Every now and then we stopped for a break to watch the news – depressing news mostly about how people’s lives got affected by the unforgiving nature – lives lost, homes destroyed and many other damages to infrastructures. One comforting thing is how the government is very involved and dedicated in helping the population. Even the Premier herself came on TV every so often to personally provide updates on their efforts – I was almost certain that she wasn’t reading from a prepared text but rather spoke from her intimate knowledge of the situation and truly showed her passion for what she does.
By early evening my other neighbour who is also my landlord came and suggested for us to prepare for the worst. I remember once seeing a picture on a wall in my office of the 1974 flood – I saw my street, with only the roof of my house showing. But that was the old house on the same spot where our house is standing now and that was a single-storey house then. So, we still have hope. We can move everything upstairs as we had planned earlier and hopefully will dramatically reduce the impact. My kind landlord also offered to help shelter my beloved bike at his brother’s place that sits on a much higher ground in Toowong. I didn’t think twice and 10 minutes later I was on my bike trailing him from behind to his brother’s place. It was indeed a nice big house with a private compound. I hope my bike will be safe there. We also met a young couple there whose house was already underwater. It was a short conversation as I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving my family behind.
Back home, the effort continues. Now we started bringing almost everything upstairs (before that we thought of clearing about 3 feet from the floor only!). With the crew that I have, the piano, treadmill, washing machine, fridge etc. had to remain where they are. At the very least, we elevated the sofa onto chairs, cabinet onto tables and whatever else we could manage to lift up.
You could probably tell from the pic that the sofa is much more expensive than the dining chair… hehe…
By the time we’re done, the upper floor looks like “kapal karam” (shipwreck). This is the pic when we were only half way through.
This is the kitchen half way through Plan A i.e. to only “elevate” the stuffs. Later pic will show everything’s gone.
The plan evolved into Plan B which is taking into account water flooding the entire lower level hence we will totally evacuate the lower level and to defend ourselves on the upper level. We also started filling up every container we can with water.
Even the bathtub became a water reservoir! As far as food is concern we were well stocked as my wife bought quite a lot this morning and we were almost never out of ikan masin (dried fish), sardines and Maggi mee anyway!
By midnight we were very exhausted. My kids however were still going on strong wanting to help. I guess sitting around doing nothing will make them even more nervous. The TV, even though informative, sometimes not very helpful in reducing the worries. Listening to the Premier’s address repeated again and again, “… as we all prepare for the worst disaster in history…” just sends shivers down my spine. More news on death and loss and damage throughout the night.
At 2:00 am I went out with my wife to survey the area. Water was coming in from the river side towards our area but still some 1 km away at least. See below how the road signs were already submerged on the top pic
After that my wife and daughter took the first turn of watch while I tried to catch some sleep.
