Higher Ground

It’s hard to know where to begin with the story of the floods in South East Queensland, but i guess after a month of straight rain, all of the accumulated water eventually came thrashing down the Brisbane River at alarming speed and volumes. On the evening of Monday, January 10^th a town west of the city, Toowoomba, was hit with a massive flash flood that took the entire community by shock. Cars were washed right off the roads as a wall of water took out the main roadways. People clung on to trees for dear life; it was complete devastation as no one predicted this size of storm to hit the region. On Tuesday, all the water from the Toowoomba floods had to flow somewhere and by 10am we were receiving notifications at work that we needed to get home to prepare for the flood to hit Brisbane. The suburb adjacent to ours, West End, was currently being evacuated. By noon, no one was left in the office and Dave met me at work to rush home in the pouring rain, I mean cats and dogs and lizards and frogs...we were drenched!! We had no idea what was in store for the next couple of days that lay ahead so we sat at the windows in our living room, safe and dry on the 8^th floor, and watched as dock after dock and boat after boat became untied and thrashed down the river. Some boats hit the bridge piers and sunk to the bottom of the river. At one point one in the day we looked out to keep an eye on the rising waters to see a floating restaurant break loose of its bearing, it was completely shattered as it collided with the Go Between Bridge. By the end of the day Tuesday the floods had engulfed whole suburbs in the lowest lying areas of Brisbane, and the water levels were still on the rise. Wednesday marked the day that the peak of the flood was expected to hit and it did so at 5.3m. Just picture that - five meter sticks stacked up, it’s hard to imagine. Many rescue efforts were in place to save families stranded on rooftops and in trees. We stayed safe in our place watching as the footpaths disappeared from sight. We were very lucky to be safe on higher ground, however many of our friends and coworkers were not. Cars were washed out, basements inundated, and the power was cut off from many of their houses. Our hearts go out to everyone who was affected by the tragic floods. My parents arrive in Brisbane in just 11 days, what crazy timing for them to see the aftermath of this destruction. The coming weeks ahead will be focused on cleaning up the mess and helping out people in need. We have scheduled a work meeting for Sunday, to determine how and when we will return to work, if not from the office then at least from home. A coworker has flown all the way to our Vancouver office location with backup drives for the computers network system, so they are doing all that can be done to get us back on track and working again.

Well, on the plus side, since we are now staying on the Gold Coast until Monday, we are going to spend the day on the beach today and let our troubles wash away in the tide!