I am exhausted. My home town is bracing for a flood. A flood worse than in 1974. I haven’t been sandbagging – my home is high and (relatively) dry. But I have watched, with broken heart, the devastation in Chinchilla and been kept in the loop by an old school friend. Then I watched as Gympie was inundated and, again, felt the suffering of so many watching their homes go under. Gympie’s flood made all the more personal by friends who live there. THEN Toowoomba. Oh my goodness! Toowoomba! Those images were beyond terrifying. The idea that water can come so swiftly and brutally to an inland town is beyond imagining. The images of streets I have often driven down as raging rapids plays over and over in my mind. My heart aches for the families of those who have lost their lives and I feel desperately for those who will be left to clean up and rebuild.

As we watched these events unfold, I wondered how taxing it must be to know a disaster is coming days before it does and feel completely and utterly powerless to do anything about it. I wondered what it must feel like to be waiting for the worst and wondering just what that would be. And now, I know.

Snapshot of the 1974 floods - predictions are that 2011 will be worse

As I type, we wait. Brisbane River has broken it’s banks some 12 – 24 hours ahead of schedule. The worst is yet to come. Tomorrow there will be a king tide and Wivenhoe will open floodgates directly into our river. In the following couple of days we’ll see Ipswich’s flood waters meet our own. Tomorrow and Thursday will be the true indicators of the extent of flooding we might expect. I have spent the day glued to Twitter, Facebook and ABC news watching familiar places engulfed in gloomy brown liquid.


The worst part of it all is the feeling of helplessness. We are safe, but helpless to do anything to ease anyone else’s fears. All I can do is to wish everyone well. Know that my prayers are for our collective safety. Good luck Brisbane. Here we go…..

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