my-speck

Hello!

Little O you are oblivious to the floods and the weird situation in Brisbane at the moment. We arrived back from Vancouver this afternoon and with the assistance of your uncles J & J and Grandad (due to the volume of luggage we had in total), you, me, your dad, your Canadian grandpa and grandma trained from the airport to a local station and then did multiple car trips to make it home as it was unclear if we would make it by car.

Our home is all fine – we are very close to the Brisbane River (about 150m) but up a steep hill. I.e. High Ground.  Your Grandad’s house is fine too, as is your Aunt G, who live in the next suburb, West End, but as a large part of that suburb is flooded, the power is off at their houses. And will be for the next 3 days at least. Floodwater is expected in the peak of 4am tomorrow at your Uncle D & Aunt R’s house and they have evacuated, so your Canadian grandparents are at your Australian Grandad’s house for the night (as ours is pretty full with us + 2 aunts) and will see then what happens tomorrow. They have no power, so I expect we’ll have some visits for hot showers, hot food and the like tomorrow morning at the very least. Your Aunt G has left her house and is here with us and your Aunt R. It sounds like as we still have power now we will not be cut of tomorrow if things go as planned as the energy companies have cut off all areas expected to be inundated tomorrow already… And we seem fine. Yay.

Your Australian Grandma is fine on the other side of the river so you probably won’t see her for a few days. She has been kayaking around low-lying areas of the neighbouring suburbs that are inundated….

For all who have sent emails, texts and questions – thanks for your concerns. We are fine, we have lots of dried and canned goods, and good humour. And power :).   A lot more than many.

Near our house there seem to be a large number of sightsee-ers about. As the city was evacuated it seems most people aren’t working so it’s a bit like a festival atmosphere with large numbers of people about on bikes, with their families in strollers and just walking around and looking in general. We are just near the green bridge so it’s a good vantage point to see the amazingly high level of the river… I guess the calm before a very large clean-up effort. And a bit of light relief following the devastating news from the past few days higher in the catchment.

I’m too tired today to even try to walk down there after the 40 hour transit.  But we will head out tomorrow and see what we can see.

Love all

-r

Coming home on the plane