My Ipswich / Brisbane 2011 flood experience: Lose a house, gain perspective

I live on an acre on the river in Ipswich, Queensland.  The value of this statement is much less now than it was 10 days ago.  This is my story.

Tuesday

It was raining Tuesday morning, as it had been for most mornings over the past several weeks.  The rain this morning was particularly heavy and there was talk of disruption to the train line.  By 10:00am, the rumour was I would be on the 11:00am train home or sleep in the office overnight.  I wish I could say I was certain of my priorities before I received the call from my wife Theresa asking me to come home. I wish for a lot of things lately that may or may not be true.

There was an excitement in the air on the train ride home that morning.  A woman across from me was speaking loudly into her mobile phone to her retail store managers, telling each of them it was raining quite heavily and that it was likely to rain some more.  I suspect the phone calls were more for her benefit than the recipients on the other end based on her dissipating her nervous energy to fellow commuters with the same conversation after she eventually lost reception.

As the train pulled into Ipswich, the gravity of the situation to each passenger was measured in their departures ranging from a casual saunter to an agitated sprint off the train. I put on my rain gear for the scooter ride home amidst groups of people waiting for a ride home.  They spoke in nervous chatter filled with speculations that held no value apart from reassurance of those making the predictions.

I turned down my street to meet a caravan of my neighbour’s cars, trucks, and horse trailers coming my way through the heavy rain.  It was the first of many surreal moments I would experience over the coming week.  I walked into the house with my standard introduction of “I’m home”, which fell flat to the sight of my family moving books and items to top shelves against a backdrop of TV coverage of rising floodwaters.

I was soon sent on a mission with my incredibly helpful friend Ariane to grab sand bags from the local counsel depot.  This was based upon a seemingly urban myth that floodwaters have an aversion to sandbags like some sort of allergic reaction. Seeing the results of placing barriers around our doors like mystical wards to fend off the evil water gods passing over our domain, I can attest sandbags alone hold no such power.

My magical sandbag barrier

With my sandbag protection in place, and bottom shelf items turned into top shelf items, we had satisfied the mandate to “do something”.  I trekked down to view the river with Ariane, meeting up with two of my neighbours as we gazed upon the slowly rising brown expanse amidst the soft patter of rain.  There was a general sense of “she’ll be right, mate” and conversations about previous flood levels well beyond what any of us were competent to discuss.

Checking out the back of my property with Ariane

Mandy and Phillip, pastors at our church, gave me a call when I returned to the house asking if we wanted to be evacuated.  I politely declined based upon 1) my judgement of the vast distance between the river and my home, 2) the incredible job we did in picking our books up off the floor, and 3) being emboldened by the collective ignorance of the males in my neighbourhood. Mandy and Phillip are thankfully clever people.  After they received an SMS from the council with revised higher river limits, they called direct to my wife who informed me we were evacuating.

I can identify this point as when the blur began.  With a couple of calls and a Facebook post, I had around 15 people in my home emptying it of my worldly possessions.  While I am a manager in my company, my role over the 6 or so hour endeavour was to act as a conduit to my wife’s instructions to the masses.  The volunteers quickly realised this and began going direct, to which I gladly shuttled goods from home to the waiting transport.  This same act was being performed in other homes across the region.

The volunteer army preparing for Chad’s pool party

Pastor Carl and company stealing my fridge

I have never been more thankful for a horse trailer

Glad Mandy thought to do the dishes before the floods

One last look down my back yard.  Water? What water?

Having cleaned out the majority of my belongings as darkness hid the oncoming river, we went up the street to crash at Ariane’s place on top of the hill.  I drifted off to sleep with a mixed calm of uncertainty and inevitability, like being strapped into a roller coaster that may or may not crash through your house.  We woke to no power and a driving desire to see the unknown.

Wednesday

I scootered down to the house early around 6:00am to be met with water in the bend in my street just before my potentially submerged abode.

The bend before my house. Think my scooter can make it?

I could not see my house around the corner, but from the house to my right, the chance of morning tea on a dry floor was not looking promising.

Number 95 up the street.  It was not looking promising.

I hopped off my scooter and went for a wade.

Floods educate you on the high and low spots on a road you never noticed before.  I sloshed around the corner in waist-deep water to see my house high and dry and the river still a few metres away in my back yard.  Theresa and Ariane soon arrived and we bagged up a few remaining items to carry out as I watched the water approach like a slow-moving train wreck in progress.

That pot will be wet in under an hour

Prompted by a phone call from Mandy and Phillip to leave before we were trapped, we headed off but not before I caught a glance of two bull terriers standing on my neighbour’s nearly floating porch table.  Ariane once again came to the rescue, and we carried, cajoled and coerced two excitable and pathetic- looking pups over fences and through now-chest-high water to another neighbour’s fenced yard up the hill.  My ability to give people the benefit of the doubt was tested over the next two days with thoughts that the dogs were potentially abandoned to their own devices.  Oh well, it is not for me to judge.

With no power and communication through mobile and social media limited to the hour battery life on my iPhone, I settled into a surprising calm of no technology.  I studied a bit, took some notes on thoughts, and tried (unsuccessfully) to stay off Facebook as much as possible to save battery life.

The river was predicted to peak in Ipswich around 5:00pm that day.  Anxious to see the “worst case”, Theresa and I headed back down to scope out the situation.  We met up with a group of neighbours taking turns at manoeuvring a kayak around the bend.  I left Theresa to wait for the return trip and strode into what I would discover to be neck-deep water.

Rounding the bend for the second time that day and seeing my house waist-deep in water was less impacting than I thought it might be.  This may be due to seeing my neighbour’s house completely immersed or perhaps my senses were dulled from the raw sewage contributing to the colour of the river.  Either way, Theresa and I slowly circled our home with casual comments about water beds and replacing the ugly bathroom tiles.

My “drive” way

Share a cuppa on the porch, anyone?

Snails evacuated to higher ground as well

Our new water bed

Those sandbags didn;t work too well

Time to clean out the shed

Our photos and memories captured, we headed back, Theresa on the kayak and I on floating foot.  I discovered on the return trip why the journey to my house was so easy.  The river was receding as fast as it had come in and the pull was definitely away from where I wanted to be.  At the lowest point in the bend, I was bouncing along neck deep on my tippy-tippy toes with my iPhone in a bag above my head.

Bouncing along at about an inch per minute, the volume of my inner monologue was turned up as three helicopters passed overhead.  I could hear the television reporters and police spokespeople complaining on the late news about this loser in Ipswich who wasted valuable emergency resources being saved simply because he had to see his house.  I shared a few concerned looks with the displaced spiders skimming over the top of the water as I slowly bobbed two toe-hops forward, one back.

After what seemed an eternity, I finally edged around the corner to see my wife and neighbours in deep conversation and the occasional chuckle.  I later learned the direct quote went something like “Want to see something funny? Your husband.”  Having dodged the doofus drowning award, I was man enough to take some chiding on my thankfully dry chin.

We returned to our temporary residence for a needed drenching in clean water and disinfectant. The lack of power made for a fun camping atmosphere as we talked about what the day’s observations would mean for our immediate future.  We had confirmed that we were one of the fortunate ones who were insured for flood damage.  Many we spoke to that day faced a terrible trifecta of 1) being flooded, 2) losing their belongings, and 3) being uninsured due to policy clauses that restricted payment based on the “type” of flood.  Most who happened to be insured attribute the fact to luck rather than some strategic decision.

Stuff

The next several days ran together in a rush of adrenaline as we helped neighbours tear down their walls and had friends come over and do the same to our place. Our street looked like a war zone as people’s lives were vomited upon the street.

A mountain in front of every house

Cars lined our dead-end road two and three deep as we were descended upon by volunteers and tradesmen working on the rebuild process.

It was as if everyone decided to remodel at the same time with copious amounts of depression and anxiety. In addition to piles of personal property marking each residence, a makeshift dump yard formed in a vacant lot mid-way up the street, complete with bulldozers and stench.

A makeshift tip

I was amazed at how much we collect.  Like a frog turning it’s stomach inside out, our most private innards were exposed for all to see.  It did not matter if others thought it to be insignificant or trite, this stuff that once was ours was now given the same treatment as liver leftovers from last week.

Flood Santa brings you wet stuff

You can’t help but consider how much of what we hold dear has true value.

Community

The community support during the clean up was incredible. Friends, church, and local volunteers descended upon affected areas to lend a hand. Yes, I lost my home, but the relationships developed through the journey are invaluable.

Theresa entertaining the troops

Ice cream break.  We won;t ask if they washed their hands first.

The local SES offering assistance.  He just offered to buy me a new house!

Kalie moving water, and loving it

Ariane paddling through the river of sheet rock

Mark likes his gloves

Why me?

A few days after the flood, we were asked to have a conversation in front of our church about our experience.  In addition to sharing our story and expressing our immense gratitude for everything they had done and continue to do for us, we were asked the question “Do we every feel ‘Why me? Why did we get flooded and others not?’”

Do I feel “Why me?” Yes, absolutely.  Why were we fortunate enough to get the majority of our household goods out when others lost everything?  Why did we have insurance, when others did not?

Expanding our scope, a few days before our house got hit a flash flood in Toowoomba, a town a few hours away, took several lives from a freak inland “tsunami”.  Even as we were dealing with our crisis, landslides in Brazil killed hundreds, with thousands more to be impacted from lack of infrastructure and support.

Why me?  Why am I so fortunate to be limited in impact to only have to replace my house?  Why do I live in a country that has the capacity to bring support and services online within days of an incident?  Why is it that I am graced with a position in a company that supports their staff through an event, and sends a team of programmers to clean another affected employee’s home that went completely underwater?  Why was I given such community support from a local church?

I did not have the answer that morning, and I do not now.  I do know I am fortunate.  Most of you with the capacity to read this blog are significantly more fortunate than a vast portion of the world’s population.  You too can ask yourself “Why me?”.  I do not believe that is a question that needs to be answered.

With an understanding of what you have to be grateful for, the question that should follow is “What are you going to do with it?”