I realized today that I should be blogging about the flooding and what has been going on here. Things have been hectic, so I'm a little behind, but to give you the full picture I thought I'd take it a day at a time.
On Tuesday we woke up and went about getting ready, the Stake Relief Society President called me to see how our ward was doing because we'd been having a lot of heavy rain. It was almost consistent for weeks and sometimes really heavy. It is the wet season, but it was already a very wet summer. Then I got a call from Gloria telling me to turn on the news. She told me there had been an "inland Tsunami" in Toowoomba and major flooding was expected for Ipswich and Brisbane. We turned the tv on and watched horrific video of the 8 meter wall of water ripping through the main street of Toowoomba. They said the flooding for our area was expected the next day, so Orvon went in to work.
Leilani, my first counselor stopped by to discuss our plans for an upcoming Relief Society activity. We quickly decided it would be about emergency preparedness. Even as she was there, we couldn't turn away from the news and they announced the suburbs at risk included the area where Orvon was. Ansel called and said that the motorway Orvon uses to get home would be closed in a few hours. I called him and urged him to get home quickly. Leilani left and in the half hour she had been there, the water was beginning to stand in our front yard. I watched her splash through our new lake in the heavy rain and tried to think what I needed to be doing. I took a deep breath and said a prayer to clear my mind. I found myself crying as I asked that we might be spared, knowing that several people had already lost their lives and so many thousands were yet to loose their homes and everything they have.
As I gathered documents and quickly assembled a 72 hour pack for Elissa (I last put them together before she was born) I continued to worry about Orvon getting home. I could picture the low point in the road where I knew the water would start covering the road first. I was relieved when he finally told me he was on his way home. I tried to do what I could to ready us if we needed to evacuate, but I was distracted by cranky, hungry, neglected children. So, I made lunch and put Elissa to sleep. I started looking at my watch thinking Orvon should be home any minute, and continued to wait. I knew if he didn't make it through he could be stuck on the other side of the city for a week. I started getting really anxious and continued to imagine that low point in the road. I felt sheer relief when I heard the garage door go up.
Once Orvon was home and we were able to plan, we decided to go spend the night with his family just so we wouldn't find ourselves cut off from them. We didn't imagine the house was in danger of flooding, but with water standing in the front yard and the graphic images on tv, we took a few quick precautions and packed clothes and food in case we were stuck there for a few days.
We had a great evening with his family, even though we weren't really in any danger of flooding, it was really nice to be together with everyone. We spent the night with Ansel and Gloria and got the kids to bed way too late. Then, because we were glued to the tv (and the Gough boys just have to watch a movie when they get a chance), we didn't get to bed until after 1am.
It was hard to get to sleep knowing what the morning would reveal. The water was already in the river system, it was going to happen and there was nothing to be done about it. As I laid there I remembered the Koala Sanctuary was right on the river. I fell asleep thinking "what about the koalas?"
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