Are there any Aussies out there still suffering from the remnants of ex-Cyclone (Hurricane) oswald?
I've had a busy couple of days:
Sunday lost power so i had to go to work to sort some stuff out. About 7 miles out from home at 9pm i became trapped with a few other neighbours by rising floodwaters and spent the next 12 hours huddling from the wind/rain under a closed petrol station's awning. One neighbour lost his little car in the waters where i had been parked high and dry an hour earlier. We went and checked the water levels every hour but it was pretty grim for a long time. Finally at about 8:30am monday we were able to get my jeep through as the water dropped. We were the first through to town and the road in was cut up and washed out pretty bad.
Normally a cow paddock:
poor little car after the water came down. It wasn't the neighbour's fault, the water was only a few inches deep but sucked up water and hydrolocked then the water covered it shortly after:
Monday 9am, we were finally into our tiny town but it was cut in two by another creek and some of my neighbours still couldn't get home. We back tracked up the hill to my place where my wife & kids greeted us and we had a LONG hot shower and a hot meal, had power at our place. We went back and towed the little car to higher ground. We kept driving down to the creek (about 2miles) to check it but it was going down slowly. Take a look at the debris in the tree on the left in the pic to see how high it was while we were trapped out of town:
We went out to the main road where we had been stranded (some water levels had dropped) and looked around to see if the major roads were cut. They were:
This Gas bottle washed down from somewhere. The local rural volunteer fire station pulled it from the water's edge to make it safe:
We finally got them home over that bridge at 5pm Monday, some of them had been trapped after a 10hr shift at work, that's 30hrs away from home with no sleep! I went home and watched the disaster unfold on telly and went to bed early.
Tuesday morning off to work to sort out problems, still no power since sunday and can't open for trade. All roads north leading to the city are blocked so we can only go south to home. 3 towns between my house and work all had no power since sunday. They were running out of supplies. Stayed all day waiting for power, finally it came back on, did some work then left for home. Here i am, it's now almost midnight leading into thursday, just about ready for bed. There will be a lot of work tomorrow to catch up on. Hopefully the waters will recede up there so i get get up to the other office for work. I've got to air out the jeep, the soft top couldn't keep out all that rain! I had to pull the drain plugs in the floor sunday night while we were trapped!
We've had nothing on those poor people up at Bundaberg, with tornadoes and now major flooding. The Blackhawk chopper were using night vision last night and apparently rescued over 1000 people from rooftops etc. They even evacuated the whole hospital by chopper it seems.
Before i left and became stranded on sunday night, i grabbed my little 24hr bag. I've got a few little things in there like a phone charger, video camera, swiss army knife, a few other things and half a dozen flashlights. I had my Klarus XT20, Sunwayman V10R, 2x 4Sevens 2xaa tacticals, Zebralight SC600 & SC51 & H51, and a spare set of batteries for each. I also took a bag with hot thermos, tea, fruit, snacks etc so i was ok for the 12 or so hours while trapped. At home we always keep plenty of food, water and flashlights and spare batteries so everything was fine for my family.
I hope if there's any forum members who are trapped up around the Bundaberg disaster area you are ok!
Hope you enjoyed the pics
cheers
I've had a busy couple of days:
Sunday lost power so i had to go to work to sort some stuff out. About 7 miles out from home at 9pm i became trapped with a few other neighbours by rising floodwaters and spent the next 12 hours huddling from the wind/rain under a closed petrol station's awning. One neighbour lost his little car in the waters where i had been parked high and dry an hour earlier. We went and checked the water levels every hour but it was pretty grim for a long time. Finally at about 8:30am monday we were able to get my jeep through as the water dropped. We were the first through to town and the road in was cut up and washed out pretty bad.
Normally a cow paddock:
poor little car after the water came down. It wasn't the neighbour's fault, the water was only a few inches deep but sucked up water and hydrolocked then the water covered it shortly after:
Monday 9am, we were finally into our tiny town but it was cut in two by another creek and some of my neighbours still couldn't get home. We back tracked up the hill to my place where my wife & kids greeted us and we had a LONG hot shower and a hot meal, had power at our place. We went back and towed the little car to higher ground. We kept driving down to the creek (about 2miles) to check it but it was going down slowly. Take a look at the debris in the tree on the left in the pic to see how high it was while we were trapped out of town:
We went out to the main road where we had been stranded (some water levels had dropped) and looked around to see if the major roads were cut. They were:
This Gas bottle washed down from somewhere. The local rural volunteer fire station pulled it from the water's edge to make it safe:
We finally got them home over that bridge at 5pm Monday, some of them had been trapped after a 10hr shift at work, that's 30hrs away from home with no sleep! I went home and watched the disaster unfold on telly and went to bed early.
Tuesday morning off to work to sort out problems, still no power since sunday and can't open for trade. All roads north leading to the city are blocked so we can only go south to home. 3 towns between my house and work all had no power since sunday. They were running out of supplies. Stayed all day waiting for power, finally it came back on, did some work then left for home. Here i am, it's now almost midnight leading into thursday, just about ready for bed. There will be a lot of work tomorrow to catch up on. Hopefully the waters will recede up there so i get get up to the other office for work. I've got to air out the jeep, the soft top couldn't keep out all that rain! I had to pull the drain plugs in the floor sunday night while we were trapped!
We've had nothing on those poor people up at Bundaberg, with tornadoes and now major flooding. The Blackhawk chopper were using night vision last night and apparently rescued over 1000 people from rooftops etc. They even evacuated the whole hospital by chopper it seems.
Before i left and became stranded on sunday night, i grabbed my little 24hr bag. I've got a few little things in there like a phone charger, video camera, swiss army knife, a few other things and half a dozen flashlights. I had my Klarus XT20, Sunwayman V10R, 2x 4Sevens 2xaa tacticals, Zebralight SC600 & SC51 & H51, and a spare set of batteries for each. I also took a bag with hot thermos, tea, fruit, snacks etc so i was ok for the 12 or so hours while trapped. At home we always keep plenty of food, water and flashlights and spare batteries so everything was fine for my family.
I hope if there's any forum members who are trapped up around the Bundaberg disaster area you are ok!
Hope you enjoyed the pics
cheers
