The Great Flood of 2011

It has been such an interesting week that I have had to change the title of this installment as unforseen events turned a short, slow story into the headline of a century. Last Saturday, Jan 8, we went down to the Gold Coast to see Disney Live’s “Princesses” show. It was a live stage musical with Mickey and the gang telling short versions of “Snow White”, “Cinderella” and “Beauty and the Beast”. The convention centre was full of little girls in their favorite princess outfit. We all enjoyed the singing, dancing and stories. After the show we discovered that there is a monorail in the Gold Coast that runs from Jupiter’s Casino to a shopping centre. Since we have a young boy who loves monorails, we rode it a couple times with a break for lunch. Last Sunday it appeared it was going to be a quiet week so I had already labelled my blog “Princesses” since it was obviously going to be the main event of our week. 

waiting for Disney Princess show to start

 Before Christmas we ended up with our first family pets. Aunty Kat gave the kids her two goldfish. They had really enjoyed feeding them every time we were at Kat’s house so this was the next logical step it seems. Alex named his fish “Golphy” and Ellie demonstrated just how sharp she is by naming her fish “Flushy”.

We don’t have a dryer so I am very attuned to the changes in weather. With all the rain we have been having the last two months it has been difficult to get the washing done sometimes. Last week I was sitting upstairs on the sofa with the kids when it suddenly struck me that it had started to rain. With a load almost dry on the line, I didn’t want to lose another batch. I jumped up shouting “Its raining, the washing”. The kids just burst out laughing at me. My concern over rain and washing is still a running family joke.

Sunday night, Jan 9, we were having dinner over at some friends house. Paul and Michelle have twins, a boy and a girl, who are exactly between Alex and Ellie in age and they get along really well.  The live in New Farm, which is right along the river, in a ground floor apartment just a few metres from the riverbank. We were sitting out on the patio watching the river go by, the rain falling and the bats flying around the huge fig trees. They moved here from Oregon and were commenting that the rain here in the last couple months was much worse than the weather in Oregon.

Wednesday evening, Jan 12, they were all over at our house for a BBQ. The rain had stopped the day before but it was more than a visit for dinner and some play time. They were here to stay for a couple days, evacuees from the Great Flood of 2011. All the rain in the last couple months was too much for the Brisbane river. The last great flood in Brisbane was in January, 1974. Partly as a result of that flood they built the Wivenhoe dam upstream. As a result of almost ten years of draught in the region, 18 months ago the dam was at 17% capacity. The story goes that the experts were saying it would take ten years of above average rain to get back to 100%. By Tuesday, 18 months after being at 17%, the dam was at 200%! As a result of months of rain, not even the dam could keep back the floods anymore.  

Tuesday morning, Jan 11, with pouring rain, I took the kids to Chipmunk’s, a large indoor kids play area.  After a fun morning of playing, sliding, and climbing, they made an announcement about roads closing and flooding. I thought maybe we should get in the van and head home. As we were leaving, Emma called to say they were evacuating the Central Business District (CBD) and she was taking the train home.  As we pulled into the wall of inching traffic, the radio announced that Strathpine was one of the towns that everyone should evacuate to avoid the rising creek. We managed to outrace the flood home and it only took an hour-and-half to get home to find Emma was already home. I headed to the grocery store to get some supplies and many of the shelves were already bare. Wednesday morning Emma went to the store to get some more food and it took her an hour-and-half to get through the checkout line.

The Brisbane river was rising slowly and they were predicting it would surpass the flood level of 1974. The peak was predicted for 0400 on Thursday morning for Brisbane. We woke up Wednesday to a beautiful sunny day. Unfortunately it was too late to stop the coming flood waters. Paul and Michelle's apartment was just at the expected peak level so they hightailed it out on Wednesday as the power was switched off to come stay with us. Our suburb is far enough north of the river and high enough that we didn’t get any flood water. We watched in awe the footage of things being washed down the river, including floating restaurants washed away. Thursday was another gloriously sunny day and the only good news was the waters had not reached the record level of 1974. Unfortunately huge swaths of Brisbane were underwater by then. The underground car parks in Emma’s building which is right next to the river were completely flooded and the whole CBD was a ghost town. The scenes of devastation are heartbreaking. The waters have started to recede and the entire city has come out to begin the cleanup. The CBD is still closed and it might be another week until Emma can get back to work at her office. Some people are heading to the firm’s office in Melbourne so they can do some work and Emma will work between home and a temporary serviced office until the CBD is up and running again. One of the stories from the flood is a goldfish that was flushed out of his bowl when the flood waters flooded the house and after the waters receded a couple days later he ended up in the bathtub. He has been renamed “Lucky”. The waters completely inundated some neighborhoods with water over the roofs and up into the second story of many homes. Some shopping centres were completely underwater and SunCorp stadium, the major stadium in town looked more like a location for a swim meet than a football game.  There are still many bare shelves in the stores as 75% of Queensland has been affected by flooding and much the infrastructure is flooded or damaged. Paul and Michelle, John and Julia went home Friday when the power was turned back on at their complex. They were fortunate that they had no flooding, not even their underground car park.  We had a fun couple nights flood sleepover, but that was tempered with the fury and might of the flood waters we saw going on throughout Brisbane and the surrounding valleys.  The clean up will take months and years.

In the midst of the events going on around us, I finally heard from the Australian embassy in Washington DC that my visa was finally all set. In order to issue my resident visa, I need to leave the country for at least three business days. The closest and cheapest option for me is Vanuatu, so I am heading off for a little holiday by myself on Tuesday, Jan 18 for 5 days.   Emma will be able to now report on how it feels to be a full time working single mum!

One last note on rumours that I am somehow connected to “unseasonable weather events” as the Omanis so politely called Cyclone Gonu. It is true we survived Cyclone Gonu in 2007 back in Oman, the biggest storm to ever hit the country, just a few days before Ellie was born. And now we have survived some of the biggest floods to ever hit Brisbane. We did have one of the quietest hurricane seasons they have ever had while we were in the Caymans. It has been an unforgettable week and I am inspired by the spirit of Brisbane and its people as they have jumped right back up after the great flood of 2011.