The Brisbane Floods From A Western Suburbs Point of View

My post on Wednesday called how are you Bob pretty much summed up the events surrounding the flooding of Brisbane from a Western suburbs point of view.

But yesterday morning at around 11.30 our electricity was restored, which has allowed me to fire up my PC again and make this video for you.

I also mentioned in Wednesday’s post that we had been told that Thursday would be worse. Thankfully, it wasn’t. That’s helped a lot too.

I did find the process quite shocking though, especially the speed with which things happened….

  • Firstly, we were isolated and very quickly, probably within about two hours.
  • Next, most, but not all houses in the area lost their electricity supply.
  • Then all the shops, including food and petrol supplies were cut off by flooding.
  • Very quickly, essential items like food, milk, nappies and bread were impossible to get hold of.
  • Fridges were defrosting fast and food that was supposed to get us through was going off.
  • Even if you did have some battery left in your mobile phone, getting a signal wasn’t easy.

Yes, we were very isolated.

If you stopped and thought about these things too much, you would have realised you were in a scary situation. But luckily, none of us really stopped to think.

But although we were isolated, we had enough resources within our community to get by. We had doctors, police and able-bodied men and women, all of them looking to help each other. Church and community halls opened their doors and people came to help. And so did the Army, they turned up Thursday evening bringing the essential supplies that we needed.

Here’s the Brisbane floods, from a western suburbs point of view.

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{ 9 comments… add one }
  • BobinOz February 7, 2011, 2:05 pm |

    Thanks Marta, never happening again would be nice, but very unlikely. Australia is a country of extremes and has been for centuries. I think it’s the price we pay for living here.

  • Marta February 5, 2011, 4:19 am |

    Hey Bob,

    I’ve been reading your post regularly and I never got a chance/time to say anything. I just want to say that I wish Queensland would recover soon from all the disasters that’ve hit it recently. May it all end now and never happen again.
    All the best,
    Marta

  • BobinOz January 25, 2011, 9:56 pm |

    Hi Bryan

    Thanks for your kind comments. Glad to hear you were not affected too badly.

    Yes, the Aussie spirit was fantastic. I wrote a post about it, click here to read about the amazing volunteers.

    Cheers

    Bob

  • Bryan McHeyzer January 25, 2011, 1:18 pm |

    Hi Bob,
    Found your blog thanks to a comment you left on another blog.

    Like the video you did on the floods….while the subject was not exciting (too many lost too much)… it was well do and gave me an idea of how you guys were effected by the floods,

    I live on the other side in Regents Park…about 20 klm from the city and did not even loose power.

    The one good thing that came out of this is the way people were ready to help each other and most were complete strangers.

    A great community sprit is showing through.

    Thanks for the post.
    Cheers
    Bryan

  • BobinOz January 17, 2011, 1:26 am |

    Hi Steve

    Thanks for the link to the map, you are right, it is very clear. I can zoom right in on my back garden and I can tell you it’s very up to date. But I have looked at some of the areas that were completely submerged at the height of the floods, and on this map they look completely clear.

    I can zoom in on the exact light blue roof that was the only visible evidence of a house, as seen in my video, and the five or so houses next to it that were completely submerged. Yet they are all dry as a bone in this picture. So I don’t know at what point this picture was taken, it’s a shame it wasn’t at the height of the floods.

    As for the video, yes, I do enjoy doing them. Maybe I should do more. Easier than typing.

  • Steve January 16, 2011, 10:29 am |

    Very insightful video into what it’s like to see the floods at ground level. Earlier I checked out a very interesting satellite map of the floods at 2cm resolution (very clear images) and the extent of them is incredible. The website is called http://www.nearmap.com – search for Brisbane.

    I really liked your video blog (although not the circumstances of course). Do you think of making more video blogs? They’d be a great supplement to your blog. I have found your blog and book incredibly useful in helping me make my decision to move to Australia. Cheers.

  • BobinOz January 15, 2011, 9:55 pm |

    Olya – when it came, it was “all of a sudden”. And many people did move out, but they couldn’t take their stuff with them.

    Craig – if I lost my dry wit I really would be sunk. It’s hard enough trying to hang onto it as I turn into a grumpy old man. Hopefully I’ll manage it. Hope you get your visa soon, we need all the help we can get.

  • Craig January 15, 2011, 8:59 pm |

    Bob glad to see you are ok, and more importantly that dry wit sense of humour is still intact. Take care Bob and family and I just wish my visa was through so that I could volunteer for the clean up efforts.

  • Olya January 15, 2011, 8:42 pm |

    Hi Bob! Nice to hear that everything is fine now and the flood is gone. But why did you stay in your house and waited for water to come? Why didn’t you move out for a couple of days until the water go?

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