Fear and FLOODING in Brisbane

So we survived the floods in Brisbane, wow what an adventure.

It all started Tuesday morning when the area around our work was evacuated. Malli and me went home without any problems and when we came home we laughed at the situation. We walked to the Brisbane River, which runs just a few 100 meters from our house. But it looked fine; it would take A LOT before our area would be flooded. But we were wrong, so wrong.

We sat and chilled with a few beers in our kitchen with the German couple that moved in just 2 weeks before. After a few beers we decided to go to the casino, just for fun. We left the house 7ish pm with no signs of the flood.

On Our way home from the casino, that by the way was very empty. Malli and me decided to go to McDonalds that is pretty close to home. When we a few 100 meters away from McD realised that the Golden M wasn’t shining anymore, we new something was wrong. We took a shortcut close to the Sun Corp stadium and there we got in contact with the first sign of the flood. The whole street was filled with water up to our ankles. But a little bit tipsy we just laughed about it and went home.

When we came home (about 11 pm) the ground in the backyard to our house and a little bit of the street was starting to be filled with water. It was really weird because it wasn’t raining and the river wasn’t flooded jet. It was like the ground just said “fuck this” and let go of the water from 4 months rain. We all sat in the kitchen just looking at the water go higher and higher. Step by step of the stairs to the house disappeared under water, it was about one step per 40 min.

 We decided to go to bed and just see what happens in the morning, if we have to leave the house or if we could stay.  We woke up 7 am Wednesday morning, the sun was shining trough the window, kinda’ ironic because it was like the first time in weeks the sun was showing his little face.  I looked outside on both sides of the house. And WOW our rat hole to house had turned into a houseboat! Wiiie! What I always wanted. The dirty brown stinky water had risen a lot during the night and garbage bins, a fridge was floating around and a few cars was half flooded.

We sat around a bit just looking at the surreal view.  A man walked pass in the water with his dog on a surfing board.

We stared packing and carry all our stuff from the house about 9.30 am. The water was up to our waists and by then the drains and the toilet wasn’t working properly in the house. Well I guess we were lucky they didn’t flood during the night and we woke up to shit floating around in the house, that’s for sure.

When all our stuff was out from the house, (around 11 am) the water was up to our chests. We said goodbye to the house and went to Mallis sister Rebecca’s place.  Very nice of her host family to open up their home for us.

We haven’t been at the house since. But the German couple was there to check it out a few days later and it was flooded about 0.5 meters inside the house. The carpets and walls was full of stinky mud, the electricity was gone, totally unliveable.

The following week was stressful. We didn’t know what to do, were to go, if we could find a new place to live etc. For a few days we couldn’t even go any were because all the roads were closed. And all the food stores were closed because all the crazy people panicked and bough one year supply of food in one day!

Everyday we saw on the news people loosing their homes, workplaces, pets even family and friends.  A total disaster and we just laughed about it in the beginning, not good for your karma.

But everything starts to go back to normal, at least for Malli and me. It was just a fucking haemorrhoids pain in the ass!




Xx