Thursday, February 10, 2011

City of mud and angels


Neroli Roocke's home was all but swallowed with the raging Brisbane River when it was in full flood. Here she tells her story.
  • Print
  • Email
  • Share
  • Permalink
What a shock to realise it's been a month since dirty, brown water invaded my home and I learned to see my city in a new light.
As neighbours scrambled to move antiques, plasma TVs and cars - my family waded away from our house on a Tuesday afternoon with five chickens in a box, a terrified terrier, three mice, a shouting budgie and a complaining cat.
The decision to go when we did was sound. Within an hour we'd have needed a boat to cross the road and Noah's Ark wasn't available.
The next day we accepted a lift in a tinnie to get back inside our house. With water to our knees upstairs we lifted books, instruments and keepsakes to higher shelves.
While the Brisbane River raged and roared less than a kilometre away, in my street the water was a quiet, almost stealthy, invader. It reached a peak of about 4 metres across my garden. It was chest deep in our bedrooms and kitchen but up to my neighbour's gutters.
We stayed in the home of a friend and turned off the television.
Getting back inside our house on the Saturday morning was a struggle. The back door had warped and had to be wrenched and it then took 45 minutes for us to pick our way through to the front door.
Things don't just get wet in a flood, they float and whirl around and land in all sorts of places. Not only little things move, things like fridges, beds, cupboards and sofa cushions end up all over the place coated in thick, slimy and smelly mud.
But into the mud and the mess and the shock came the angels. These are the friends, relatives and the complete strangers who helped us face and begin the task of sorting and clearing.
Soldiers carried my piano and my sofas to the street; a woman I'd never seen before and haven't seen since cheerfully emptied the putrid fridge; a neighbour's friends emptied my wardrobes and a team of more than 80 men shovelled the collapsed walls and ceilings out from downstairs.
The middle of my street looked like landfill but, in a surreal way, a carnival atmosphere developed. A band played, sausages sizzled, people offered drinks, brooms, cupcakes and hugs.
Since that weekend the shell of my home has dried slowly and it awaits a team of builders.
Women who were hit by the storms in The Gap several years ago have washed our clothes, passing on the care they accepted when they were in trouble.
I have learned it's good to cry with your neighbours, that complete strangers are happy to get filthy and weary helping you with an enormous mess, that you can fit five chickens in a cat box if you squash them a bit and that blue tongue lizards know how to keep safe from the water and find their way back your garden.
I have also learned to never under-estimate water in Queensland.
The next time someone I meet on a trip to rural Queensland tells me they couldn't live in big city because no one cares and no one knows anyone I'll set them straight. I live in Brisbane and it's a city of mud and angels

No comments:

Post a Comment