March 4, 2022 – bushboys world

Wow what a weird, sometimes hellish five days. I lost power on Monday afternoon and woke Tuesday to no phone. I thought it be all back on sometime Tuesday. Boy was I wrong. There were landslides on the Highway on Sunday night so no one could get into town. They were cleared on Tuesday. So much rain. I have have well over 300mls at my place at times winds as well. I have a leak in the roof from where the solar panels are installed but I can’t get to from inside the ceiling space as it is too small. I filled a twenty litre bucket one night from the drip from the ceiling.

There hasn’t been any other damage around the house and sheds that I have found. The ground is still squelchy, isn’t that a fabulous word, some plants in the garden don’t lie wet roots while others have thrived. Some are flowering for the second time. Yesterday I spent chasing butterflies to no avail but the garden has had over 15 different species. Some flit past the window and by the time I have my camera they are gone or tease by flying high and not landing or fly over the roof.

My sleep patterns are crap. Last night I went to bed at 7pm as I was so tired and of course woke at 3am. I managed to have a light breakfast and after a while snoozed from about 5:30 to 6:15. The Brush-tailed Possums are in mating mode so there is thumping on the roof as they scamper about. In case you don’t know, possum sex is very noisy as well.

Luckily my besties place is high on a hill and the dairy flats were under water, the cows were on the high paddocks at the rear of the dairy, so she is OK. Her nearest town Lismore is like a war zone and the whole town went under water, in some places well over two metres. Her daughter, partner and granddaughter are staying with her as her house went under water as well as her business. A lot can be saved but she won’t go back to the house and the building her business is in isn’t safe. When people needed saving from the rising flood waters, the State Emergency Service put a call out for people with boats to help. The “tinnie navy” responded and around two hundred people went out and rescued people from house roofs and some inside the roof space. With no access in or out of the town and everything under water the evacuation centres set up were overwhelmed with displaced people.

Now the flood waters are receding there is mountains of destroyed belongings on the streets as well as wrecked cars that just floated in the water banging into each other on bridges where people parked thinking their cars would be safe. There is a wonderful group of Sikh volunteers who turn up to natural disasters and cook meals and hand them out for free. They are wonderful people.

It is estimated that there are about 5,000 people who are homeless but it probably is more like 10,000 and there is no where for them to go. A lot of people are opening their homes to strangers and family.

Will rebuilding happen again on the floodplain? The building that my besties daughters business was in wasn’t insured as the premium was $28,000 per year and the owner couldn’t afford that or even justify passing the costs onto people renting space in the building.

My nearest town. Grafton, missed out on flood only by centimeters but the towns further down river have been flooded. A lot of the minor damage was from storm water and the small creeks that flow through the town. The hinterland had floodwaters in the lower part of their houses but most of those were built to the 1:100 year flood levels but this exceeded that so their garage and lower areas were flooded.

I didn’t take any photos when I went to town but there are hundreds on the internet and Facebook. Here’s some from years ago. The bottom is the Clarence River near my place