Friday 14 January 2011

Keeping Our Heads Above Water

Unless you’ve been living in a cave (one on very high ground), no doubt you’ve heard about the flooding that’s going on now in Australia.

I’ve gotten a lot of messages from concerned folk – first of all, let me say: yes, we are fine, safe and above the flood level.

The waters are rising all around us, we’re quite trapped in our little area, which has become an island in a sea of torrents. Our home is on top of a very steep hill, so although many of our neighbours are flooded under, and we couldn’t leave our village or get very far up the road for a while, our home is out of the water.

I went to the supermarket while I could and stocked up – the place was packed full of people getting cases of tinned food. One of my friends said she got to her local town after being cut off for days, only to find the town was running out of food.

Many of our neighbours haven’t been so lucky, and people living around here, many thousands of people, have lost their homes. The area flooded is massive. It’s hard to really conceive of it, a week ago the news report was an area of Queensland the size of Germany and France combined. This week parts of New South Wales, a town to the south of us, Grafton – a town I used to live in and have many friends and people I call family in – flooded. That adds enough area to the flood-devastated region to throw in Spain as well.

I send my prayers and blessings to all those affected. I can’t imagine, really, even though I can see the raging waters, I can’t quite wrap my brain around the magnitude of this flood, and the ferocity of nature, ripping everything clean.

I think of the people who managed to get out, evacuate in time with their loved ones and valuables, expecting to come back to water damage, but still have their home, only to find that their roof was ripped off by passing cars rushing through the torrent.

Whole cities, whole communities are under water. And still it continues to rain.

14 comments:

  1. I have been wondering how you are. Be safe!! The news reports have been just horrifying. I can't even imagine.

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  2. am relieved to hear you're okay, silly me didn't click that you're in an affected area, my thoughts are with all the survivors and those at risk.

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  3. hardly counts as silly when you've got placenta brain :)

    the bulk of the floods are in QLD, so that's the buzzword, but a lot of affected areas are in NSW, all the way down to the Clarence river and inland to Tenterfield. It's a huge area.

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  4. Glad to hear you are high & dry MF. We are near Ipswich (just off the ipswich motorway, which you've seen on the news/net resembling an enormous lake) and amazingly our neighborhood is dry!

    SO many people have lost everything though :( Just in the suburb next to us even, many homes were completely submered... it will take an incredibly long time to rebuild from this.

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  5. We're sending good thoughts to everyone who is affected, the floods seem terrible from our news reports here in the UK. Stay safe xxx

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  6. So glad to hear you & your family are dry! Thanks for reporting in. I think we all "connect" with others through our blogs (even though I can't seem to publish one yet!) and send good vibes to those we are in sync with......

    Sending Peace, Rainbows & Love dear SiSTar!!

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  7. It really saddens me to see all that devastation. Glad your family is ok. Please do stay safe and hang in there ....

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  8. Glad you are safe and dry. It is really hard to comprehend the magnitute of these floods even whne you can see the raging waters, they are just massive.

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  9. thanks everyone,
    and Ariad, I'm so glad to hear you're okay too - we were a bit worried about you for a while there.

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  10. Glad to hear that you are safe. I feel for everyone who is living in devastating turmoil. You are in my thoughts through this difficult time.

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  11. im so glad your all ok, stella has been looking on here. and asking me how little tree is, ruth

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  12. Am glad to hear that you guys are OK.The whole scale of this disaster is so hard to imagine.Our hearts remain with those who have not been so lucky.

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Thanks for your lovely words, witty banter and entertaining discussion :)