Ex Tropical Cyclone Debbie Aftermath

We recently experienced one of the worst natural disasters our local area has seen in a very long time. I personally have no memory of anything ever hitting our area as hard as this.

In less than 30 hours our area had 890 mm of rain dropped on us. No wonder it had nowhere to go.

We though, are the lucky ones and whilst being placed on a possible evacuation list was mightily scary our only real threat was that of surrounding roads being cut off.

And cut off they were and still are. The above three images are from a road that we use almost daily. The sheer force of the water is simply unimaginable.

This is a major bridge and thoroughfare for our area and we cross this bridge at least once a week. It is an area of the river that floods regularly, but that happens way down below the bridge, across the old original bridge that is much closer to the actual river flow height.

This newer bridge is several metres higher than the flow of the river and has received extensive structural damage.

For water to bend a light pole is simply mind blowing.

The kids could not believe their eyes and this was absolutely hands down the best way to show them the reasons why they never ever enter flood water or try to cross a bridge that is covered with flood water.

We simply have no idea what is under that water and whether the bridge is even actually still there, as happened a few kilometers from us.

So whilst we certainly didn't want to experience a natural distaster on this scale and my heart breaks for everyone that has been so severely affected by this, it truly is education at it's best.

Eyes glued to the weather radar, watching the cyclone, tracking it's moves, discussing the eye and then watching how it breaks up as it heads south.

Then sitting through the torrential rain, only to wake and see the worst flooding we've seen right across the road from us.

Nature's fury right there in all its glory.

The vast majority of the time flooding creates nothing but havoc and devastation but every so often it creates a beautiful scene and the stillness of what appeared to simply be a lake was quite beautiful, except that it was covering a road, had entered several houses in this area and took lives, both animal and human.

Simply heartbreaking.

Utter Devastation

This past week I have been barely able to speak and certainly have been unable to blog. I've sat in front of our television, unable to tear myself away, barely doing anything but staring and crying.

The devastation that has hit our capital city, just some 20 - 25 minutes from my home is utterly unbelievable. In fact 75% of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone. Some of our smaller inland towns have all but been destroyed.

 Part of the CBD of Brisbane. The entire CBD is a ghost town, completely shut down.

High rises and apartment buildings near the river.

Goodness knows how many cars and other vehicles have been lost.

This is how residents are getting around these days.

Our fresh food markets, completely under water. 

Fresh food is having to be flown in from down south.

A raging inland tsunami hit the city of Toowoomba. 

It was completly unexpected, caught everyone by surprise and took precious lives.

This is through the main st of the city. This city has a population of around 100 000 people.

Cars were smashed against the bridge like they were toys.

And piled up like they were filming some end of the world type movie.

Roads completely cut in two.

Some of our country towns were hit the hardest.

The water came so quickly that people didn't even have a chance to leave their homes safely.

To try and give you some idea of how widespread the devastation is, Katrina covered an area of 239 000 square kilometres. The queensland floods have covered an area of 1000000 square kilometres.

In rural and inland Queensland the task of trying to clean up begins, in Brisbane we are still waiting for the flood waters to recede.

It is very heartwarming to see so much support for people in need and especially from bloggers everywhere.

My parents witnessed a flood like this when I was only a baby and I never thought that I would ever see anything like it in my life time. I thankful everyday that all of our friends and family are safe high and dry.