January 12, 2011
ARE YOU HIGH AND DRY
January 12, 2011HOW are you? I hope you’re safe. I hope you’re high and dry. I hope you have power and a phone line and if not a stock of baked beans, ric...
HOW are you? I hope you’re safe. I hope you’re high and dry. I hope you have power and a phone line and if not a stock of baked beans, rice and water and a camp stove to cook them on.
It’s been pretty wild and woolly up north, hasn’t it? And to the west, for different reasons? Have you been thinking about our bloggy friends and their neighbours down in Kinglake, Victoria, and wondering, nay, marvelling at how they picked up the remnants of their lives and soldiered on as the folk of southeast Queensland and northeast NSW will have to do?
My sister has moved to higher ground. She lives at the bottom of a hill in a suburb close to the river. Even when I was there at Christmas the street's drains overflowed with each high tide.
She's fine. Phone contact is limited because there's no power but she'll be fine.
The photos, found on Brisbane's Courier Mail, show what her suburb looked like in the 1974 floods.
It's not over yet. I have a friend working in Brisbane's disaster relief centre, another filing news copy from a pub, another holed up her workplace for the next few days. All in all, everyone I've heard from is OK. That's good, isn't it? The waters will receed, neighbours will help each other drag out their household contents to dry out - again - and they'll dry, homes will be patched, roads rebuilt and lives go on. I am in awe of that kind of resillience, that collective show of strength and spirit.
Bless.
If you're in Sydney, you can keep track of local Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal fundraisers here.
