Some Days, The Storm Gets You
Posted 17 November 2008 in Life, the Universe, and Everything by Catriona
I’m too tired to update properly.
We spent half the morning struggling to get out to The Gap in the aftermath of yesterday’s insane storm; Nick’s mother was stuck there in a damaged house with no electricity and no phone, since she doesn’t have second sight and didn’t know to charge her mobile phone up before the suburb was stomped by what they’re calling the worst storm in twenty-five years.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
And we saw almost all of The Gap, since the suburb is essentially inaccessible once Waterworks Road is cut off—which it was, with both trees and downed powerlines. So we circled through the back streets first on one side of Waterworks Road and then on the other, until we finally found a way through.
We thought the storm was one of the most severe we’ve ever had, and all we got was heavy, heavy rain and some winds.
Apparently, the winds out at The Gap were 120-130 km per hour.
It looks, if you can visualise this, as though someone took a whippersnipper to the suburb.
Every road was littered with tree branches.
All the power was down until the next suburb. It’s still down now, more than twenty-four hours later.
Even the treeline on the hills was denuded—every piece of greenery for a seven-kilometre radius is circling down a storm drain somewhere. You can see houses that were invisible behind greenery yesterday: from my mother-in-law’s back verandah, you can see the nearby dam through the gaps where the trees used to be.
We saw trees with girths of one-and-a-half or two metres snapped off, or pulled from the ground by the roots.
We saw bits of corrugated-iron roofing twisted and wrapped around tree trunks, metal playground equipment lying in pieces, fences smashed into kindling.
I’ve never seen anything like it, not even when I was caught in the 2000 storm in Sydney, the damage from which took nine months to fully repair.
In a way, I’m glad not to have taken my camera out—it would have felt exploitative.
But I’m ever more glad I wasn’t there for the storm, that my mother-in-law’s house wasn’t more badly damaged, and that I don’t need to drive in those conditions again.
Share your thoughts [12]
1
Matthew Smith wrote at Nov 17, 10:20 am
I get the impression that conditions became cyclonic at The Gap. South East Queensland has had tornados before and from the sounds of it, if there wasn’t one in that storm, it can’t have been far off. Glad your ‘laws are ok at least in terms of having survived and hopefully not sustained too much serious property damage.
2
Catriona wrote at Nov 17, 10:34 am
Well, tiles were blown off the roof and the water soaked through two stories. But the SES has to concentrate on people who actually had trees blown through their houses (and I don’t blame them, of course), so any further rain is going to cause even more damage. I don’t expect my mother-in-law to get up on the roof with a tarpaulin.
All the windows on one side of the house were smashed in by the wind, but thankfully that side was almost without windows. Unfortunately, those two rooms were the main bedrooms, so they’re camping in the living room. And, of course, most of their bedding is littered with broken glass.
It’s going to be expensive to repair. And, of course, they were terrified. But from what we saw, they got off very lightly. We saw trees down on houses and cars crushed—sheer madness.
The winds have been compared to those in Cyclone Larry, but the property damage is nothing like Larry. Nowhere near as bad.
It’s insane, though. I’ve never seen anything like it.
3
Matthew Smith wrote at Nov 17, 10:50 am
My sister in law’s place at The Gap had water in the roof and walls but no windows smashed at least. Lot’s of photos online already (250 photos at the Courier Mail link and counting).
It’s confronting just to see damage like that let alone be in it when it’s happening!
4
Catriona wrote at Nov 17, 10:54 am
That sounds bad: do they have kids? At least at my mother-in-law’s, it’s only two adult women, who can forage for themselves.
I was looking through the photos at The Courier-Mail before, when they were only at 160+, but I’ve never personally seen that type of damage. We’ve had storms in St Lucia where we’ve ended up with water in the roof—that one a couple of years ago, where it hailed so much it looked as though it had been snowing, it was essentially raining in our bedroom—but this is something else again.
5
Leigh wrote at Nov 17, 11:07 am
Glad Nicks family is ok. Sounds full on, this whole ‘you living in the tropics’ thing is getting a bit too dangerous. Its gotta be time to move home soon grin
6
Matthew Smith wrote at Nov 17, 11:10 am
nooooooooooo!!!
7
Catriona wrote at Nov 17, 11:14 am
Yep, this was a true tropical storm: we could feel it coming all day as the humidity rose and then everything went green and the heavens opened.
Actually, I was going to link to the photos on The Courier-Mail website for you, and saw that Brisbane has been officially declared a natural-disaster zone
Huh. Didn’t see that coming.
Beat that, Sydney!
8
Catriona wrote at Nov 17, 11:15 am
Matt, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for more information.
(I do love obscure comments on the blog.)
9
heretic wrote at Nov 17, 11:30 pm
My sister’s place off Payne Road got done pretty badly – hole in the roof, trees down, windows smashed, no power. Apparently it really was cyclonic.
10
Catriona wrote at Nov 17, 11:49 pm
I can believe it: we were stuck on Payne Road for an hour, trying to get past the block on Waterworks Road (but School Road was closed, so we had to turn around and come back to Ilowara and Settlement).
That’s where we saw the worst of the damage, including the trees torn up by the roots. The area Nick’s mum is in was hit much more lightly, from the looks of it—although, as I say, the fact that there was less damage means the house is going to be taking more damage over the next couple of days, as it continues to rain, because it doesn’t qualify as an emergency.
And now the weir’s broken and the drinking water’s contaminated. And with no power, still, no hot showers or hot food. Damn.
11
Sam wrote at Nov 18, 10:07 am
The last time I remember a storm doing damage on the same scale as this was a few years ago, and it was in February. This storm was October so there are still several months before the weather is safe.
I hope no more damage comes to relatives over the remainder of the season.
12
Catriona wrote at Nov 18, 10:27 am
To be honest, though, Sam, I don’t think that can have been on this scale of damage. They’re calling it the worst storm in twenty-five years, and I don’t think that’s just rhetoric.
I’ve only been here eight years, but I’ve never heard of Brisbane being labelled a natural-disaster zone before.
And, as I say, I was caught in an appalling storm in Sydney in 2000: that was in January and it was September before all the damaged homes were repaired.
This wasn’t just a bad storm. This was something else entirely.