Am I hopeful or what? The flood of 2011. That means we will get nothing worse. No more of this, thank you very little. I'm sure I'll have better luck than those who named World War I the War to End All Wars.
My friend who house and Fat Bastard sat took some photos of the area a few hours after the 4:45 am high tide.
Our street T-intersects this one. This is the main street that cuts across the neighbourhood. There are five lanes total (the fifth being the centre turn lane). If you walk down the street and look left, this is what you'd see.
Now turn right. This next one looks the other way but includes the end of our street. Just after the yellow bus stop sign is where our street comes out. The light blue house is our neighbour whose yard was flooded. I don't think there'd be too much inside damage. Well, it's shit, but I'm talking centimetres compared to metres. Let's hope I'm wrong and that only their yard was soaked.
And this is a few hours after the tide. Our house has the shorter fence. My friend waded though that muck to check on it. We only had tidal flooding, not flash. Our place was untouched. The flood didn't get as high as 5.5 metres. We missed it by a little less than one metre, so we also know that our house didn't get the muck then.
What we do have is mould. Some rooms are covered in it. It has rained non-stop since before we left--today is the first sunny day. My workplace is underwater. I'll have plenty of time to attack the mould. JOY!
Fat Bastard is okay. Cathy has heard that most of the cows were fine. No one has heard from Brooke. She was completely cut off and had to go to the area primary school. I am sure her dogs are fine. They took all the dogs.
We are fine but bored. Bored and feckin' tired. We just arrived from the US: 5.5 hour flight from Orlando to LAX; cab to Manhattan Beach for our 10 hour layover where we looked around and found a place to watch the flood prep on Facebook and the news; 15 hour flight to Melbourne; one hour layover; 2 hour flight to Brisbane; cab ride and then carrying four suitcases and three carry-ons down up and down a hill to get to our house the back way and on foot, as our streets are cut off. We. Are. Tired. We are also cut off from others and grocery stores (for a few hours) and are hungry and bored. Time to sleep. When I wake up, this will be over.
***
I have heard from Cathy. A stud farm across the street from her daughter's school lost 80 horses in the flash flood. They are having a special ceremony with the cremation and burial this week to help the devastated employees emotionally.
I'm not watching the news. I don't like seeing frightened animals who might later be one of the dead. They dont show people thrashing about in the torrent. Why show wide-eyed terrorised animals?
Gadzooks! I'm tired just reading it all! What a relief that you were spared the muck and creepy crawlies. The mold does not sound like fun, though. At. All.
Posted by: Houndstooth | 13 January 2011 at 02:38 PM
shitty, floody, crappy and jetlagged; but at least you're home safe!
Posted by: Terri | 13 January 2011 at 02:59 PM
I'm with you. I cannot watch the animals struggle. There was a pic of a guy in a boat fishing out kangaroos from the flood waters. I couldn't look at any more. Those poor horses. I'm glad everyone is ok. Send Brooke my love.
Posted by: GreytBlackDog | 14 January 2011 at 05:08 AM
What's mould. When did you start writing in a foreign language?
Posted by: RS | 09 February 2011 at 11:52 AM