Wednesday 12 January 2011

Wednesday morning the kids were awake around 5 am, having gone to bed so late, I knew this was going to be a bad day. We waited around most of the morning to see what happened when the Bremer river in Ipswich was expected to peak. It had been predicted to peak at 22 meters, then 20 and I think it's actual peak was about 19. That one less meter saved about a thousand homes. We couldn't believe we were seeing the grocery store with water up to it's roof.



We headed home when it was clear that there were no concerns in us getting cut off. We stopped at McDonald's and ran into the Elder's Quorum President who reassured us that no one in our ward was in danger of flooding. When we got home I spoke to the Bishop's wife who told me much the same but that the members in one suburb were cut off and they had no power. They'd been unable to reach some of them, but there was no reason for concern. One elderly sister was cut off as well, but she had power and I called her and she told me she was too old to worry about things like not being able to get to the shop for a few days.

We did hear that several families in the ward next to ours had homes under water and were relieved to hear they all had family to stay with. This disaster was starting to get really close to home.

Again, we spent the whole day watching the news and seeing pictures of the water rising in areas close to us. I've seen pictures of floods before, but seeing somewhere that is so familiar with water up to the roofs was so strange. Somehow it's harder to comprehend when your seeing the tips of your very own golden arches. (a different McDonald's obviously) It really amazed me how much water there must have been to fill in such huge areas.

Wednesday night we went to bed again waiting to see what the morning would bring because the Brisbane river was expected to peak at 5.5 meters at 4am.