Thursday, January 13, 2011

Flood Update

This is the latest update from my cousin who lives in Toowong, one of the worst hit suburbs of Brisbane. I received this update at 6pm last night.

"flood is still about 20cm from our floor. I'm staying at the neighbours in the apartment above."

I'm now waiting for today's update to see if the water got into his apartment when the Brisbane river peaked at 4.6m at 4.30am today.
I have been getting regular updates from him over the past couple of days.

At midnight Tuesday the water was in the garages of his apartment building and rising at 10cm every hour.

At midday yesterday the water was 40cm from going inside his apartment.

He chose to stay at the apartment block to keep an eye on everything.
I just hope he got all their valuables upstairs into his friend's apartment and that he moved his car to higher ground.

For people who know Brisbane he lives 2 streets from the river not far from the Regatta Hotel.

We are just all so glad to hear that his mother, who lives with him, is in Sydney visiting relatives.

My son, Tim, who is an Engineer on the Ipswich Highway upgrade, was sent home from work on Tuesday. The office site is at Redbank right next to the highway.
He went out there yesterday and the ground floor of the building is flooded. This means his desk is flooded, computer, paperwork etc is all destroyed.
He said in hindsight they should have moved everything from the ground floor to the 1st floor before they left work, but at the time the bosses just wanted everyone home safely before the flood hit Ipswich.
At least they are all safe.

Tim spent Tuesday evening helping his mate's uncle and family move everything that they could out of their home in Indooroopilly.
They all went back to check the house yesterday and it is completely inundated with water.
Tim said the whole street is flooded and you can only see the rooftops of the houses in the street.
After the water subsides he will be back there helping with the clean up.

Tim said Brisbane looks so surreal and there is devastation everywhere you look along the river.
Even though the Brisbane river has peaked lower than the 1974 flood level the damage will be greater due to the higher population and greater number of buildings.

We are just so thankful that all our friends and family that live in the flooded areas of Qld are safe. I hope that all your friends and family are also safe wherever they may be in Qld.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the people who have lost loved ones and still have friends and family missing, especially in the Lockyer Valley.

2 comments:

Chookyblue...... said...

thinking of you all.......

Joy said...

This whole thing is so hard to take in. Glad you're ok and that's great news about your cousin too!!
It's all so incredibly sad.
Hugs,
Joy xxx